Redefining and Delivering on Huge Scaleable Projects w/ Dan Dumbacher #53

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, everybody.

(00:01):
This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the age of infinite.
Throughout history, humans have made significant transformational changes, which in turn have led to the renaming of periods into ages.
You've personally just experienced the information age and what a ride it has been.
Now consider that you might right now be living through a transitional pay age to the age of infinite, an age that is not defined by scarcity and abundance, but by redefining lifestyle consisting of infinite possibilities and infinite resources, which will be possible through a new construct where the moon and earth, as we call it, Mearth, will create a new ecosystem and a new economic system that will transition us into this infinite future, the ingredients for an amazing sci fi story that will come to life in your lifetime.

(00:46):
This podcast is brought to you by the Project Moon Hot Foundation, where we look to establish a box with a roof and a door on the moon, a moon hot, h u t, we were named by NASA, through the accelerated development of an earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and paradigm shifting thinking from that endeavor back on earth to improve how we live on earth for all species.

(01:07):
If you're interested, you can go to www.projectmoonhot.org.
In the top right hand corner, there are some videos that you can listen to.
Today, we're going to be exploring an amazing topic, redefining and delivering a on huge scalable projects.
And we have with us today Dan Dunbacher.
How are you, Dan?
Wonderful.
How are you doing today?

(01:28):
I'm doing fabulous.
We have you.
I'm as excited as can be.
So as always, we do a brief bio.
So Dan is the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
He served as deputy associate of NASA's human exploration and operations mission directorate.
And I'll add that he's also a mechanical engineer, and he's taught at Purdue a course on systems thinking.

(01:54):
Now there's one addition that I I've been adding for probably the last 15 podcasts, and that is to explain how our process works because individuals have asked how much research did you have to do to be with your guest.
Actually, that's not how it works.
What happens is we select a guest based upon some criteria that, I guess, we have in our heads and written down in all different places.

(02:16):
We're looking for someone to deliver value when we finally catch up with them.
They watch the some videos, those videos that I just mentioned, to get an understanding of who we are.
And then what we do is we ask we bring the guest on to Joe a pre interview.
We come up with a title, just a a title.
We don't go into depth on a topic.
We go into a title, and we select what they're going to talk about.

(02:39):
Then aft this takes up to sometimes 3 hours to create.
After that is done, the guest is left on their own.
Dan and I have not spoken about this at all.
I have no knowledge of where he's going to go.
He's building what he thinks would be a value to teach us during this timeline, this, podcast.
Then before the interview starts, I take out about 12 pages of white paper put on the top the name of the title, the date, and Dan's name, and I have a pen with me.

(03:09):
I take notes.
We don't have the camera on, so I don't see Dan.
Dan doesn't see me.
You're looking over the shoulder as we're having a conversation, and we're learning together.
So that's how our process works.
I don't know where we're gonna go, and we're gonna have fun going there.
So let's get started.
Dan, do you have an outline for us?
I do have an outline.
That's fabulous.

(03:32):
Can you please give it?
Yeah.
I'd be happy to.
First, is understand the goal, and the vision.
The next one is get the smart people that can make it happen.
And then we get into a little bit of the mechanics of how to go make some of this stuff work, recognizing that the difficulty or recognize some of the challenges that you have.

(04:06):
And then I a lot of discussion about team and what it means to get the at least based on my experience, what what the team is needed and how you and how to put the team together to go make these, audacious things happen.
Perfect.
Okay.
I was able to keep up too.

(04:27):
So let's start with number 1, understanding the goal and the vision.
So, the first thing I'll say, David, is is that this is always we tend to gloss over this part of the part of the process, and we think we know what the vision is.
We think we know what the problem is we're trying to solve when indeed we might to a surface level, but we don't in-depth.

(04:55):
So one of the first things I'll say is that, at least from my experience, along the way, is make sure you understand what the goal is and what the vision is, and make sure you ask lots of questions.
What are the issues that need to be addressed?

(05:16):
Why is this vision goal important?
Why you know, understand the why behind things.
What are the objectives you're trying to accomplish?
And next question's gonna be, are those objectives even realistic?
I think, you know, from my experience, what I've learned along the way is that we actually don't spend enough time talking about or making sure everyone understands the vision and the goals.

(05:45):
We don't appreciate that each of us have you may we may be using the same words, but we have different connotations, different definitions for each of those words.
And you have to peel the onion back a few layers to make sure you have a good solid understanding of of the vision and the goals.

(06:10):
Got it.
Quick.
My mind is very quickly racing.
You've I think, we shared that the largest project you've worked on was about 3,000,000,000.
You've worked on $100,000,000 projects.
When you come into understanding this, you gave a bunch of questions or things to outline.
How do you go about doing that?

(06:31):
And asking questions is one thing that people don't almost understand.
Well, the the first thing I've been know well, you know, that's a good question.
There are probably multiple things going on altogether.
Okay.
The first one is, you know, try to figure out who the decision makers are and who the who's really leading this and what is the vision in their mind, what are they really trying to accomplish, Why are they trying to accomplish it?

(07:02):
Why is it important to them?
You know, some of this might be pretty straightforward or appear to be straightforward, but I think, you know, the first thing in my book is to is to sit down with the leadership, and I will use leadership as a as kind of a generic term.
It's a great word.
That's what I use.

(07:23):
So perfect.
Because it can be more than one person.
Yep.
And sit down with the leadership and understand what the leadership really has in their mind.
And and the the corollary with this is the more people that are considered part of the leadership, the more you have to sit down and understand each of their individual perspectives.

(07:47):
So do you sit down in your past there and when you've done this or working with do you sit down with a group and individuals, or do you how do you what's your approach?
My approach is, first of all, I get them identified, and then I go talk to them individually.
And then I get them in a room and talk to them as a group, if at all possible.
Because what they when you talk to them individually, you'll get you actually get more straightforward.

(08:17):
Mhmm.
Yes.
And you'll get more in-depth.
The group dynamics can start to affect how the conversation gets had or what comes out in the conversation.
So the I like to talk to people individually and then go to the group conversation, so that I have a a a fuller, more in-depth understanding.

(08:38):
It's it's kinda like a I'm thinking of a a a lawyer.
You get them separated, then you bring them together.
Uh-oh.
I just got compared to an attorney.
Yeah.
So and because of the scale and the size of the projects you've been on, you're going to sit down.
How do you differentiate the the BS from the real?
Like, what I'm trying to and picture you sitting in front of somebody.

(09:03):
What's the how do you bring it
out?
Well, the way I try to bring it out, and I actually, this is one of those things I've I've I've used on the students and the young young engineers that I've mentored along the way is, I use this phraseology I call or I actually, I give them this I give them these actions.

(09:25):
I said, your job is to go ask why three times.
Why do you have to why do I want 3 times is because I want you to get to the heart of the matter and to the real issues because it's very easy in the first or second quest first time 1st or second time you you ask that question.
It's very easy to get a a surface level answer.

(09:51):
But when you ask why three times, you're peeling you're you're forcing that person to think on the other side of the communication.
You're forcing that person to think more in-depth and to explain it in-depth.
The next thing I tell them or the next thing I have in approach is is as soon as somebody says, well, that's just the way we do it around here.

(10:15):
I said, that's licensed.
In fact, in my book, it's a requirement to ask why 5 more times.
Because just because that that's the way we do it around here is not an acceptable way of thinking.
There has to be a reason, and the reason has to be explainable because if the reason is not explainable, it must not be important.

(10:37):
In your experience, when you run into the people who don't give you good answers, how do you bring them on point?
Confront them with or or act highlight a different perspective, particularly if you if you have firsthand experience.
Or, the other thing you can do that I've done a lot in the past is you you you actually rely on your intuition more than you realize, and something might seem not quite right.

(11:13):
And so you you use the ability to go ask other people.
Go ask some outside experts or go ask someone that has some knowledge or potential knowledge on the subject that's at hand, and get another perspective.
It's no different than you get one diagnosis from a doctor and it's a and it's a it's a major decision and you wanna go get a second opinion.

(11:40):
There's nothing wrong with getting second opinions and even third opinions on difficult topics, and I do a lot of that.
Okay.
And then so you do this individually with all the players that you think are in charge.
Do you map them out?
Do you do you do anything that helps the team be able to your future team to be able to understand how the dynamics works?

(12:08):
You know, over time, the larger projects, you actually do need to map them out, and and actually document it and write it down for future reference.
It's, now I don't have a a a an easy tool I can point to.
I can just tell you, David, that, what I have done in the past is take notes.

(12:36):
Mhmm.
Although I'm not a very good note taker, I'll be the first to admit it.
Is take notes or write down what are some of the key learnings or key questions that you have, and then carry those with you for future reference, and also for being able to communicate to the rest of the team.

(12:59):
Now one of the things I also do is take if if if if you're coming into a a situation that already has a team established, you might wanna take some of the key players with you on these conversations so that it's not just one person hearing it.
You might have 2 or 3 people hearing the same thing.

(13:20):
And then, you use the integration of those 3 different perspectives to see what you really heard out of the conversation as well.
So what you're really trying to do, I guess, maybe is try to triangulate in on what it is.
And you do need to do some documentation.
The larger, the more complicated it is, the more you need to write stuff down or record it in some form or fashion so that you have it for future reference.

(13:48):
Okay.
Okay.
That again, we're our project is, I call it our small project, but it's got a lot lot of little zeros on the end of it.
So the first thing and I took you right off base very quickly.
You had a bunch of questions.
What are the issues?
Why behind?
You could pick up where you left off if you've got the next piece to that then.

(14:12):
Yeah.
I think, so one of the key things I always like to understand is what do others the people I'm talking with and working with or working for, what do they see as the constraints?
What do they see as the challenges or the issues that are out there?
Because you need to be honest and upfront about what the challenges and the constraints are.

(14:45):
There I haven't found it yet where there's a situation without constraints of some form or fashion.
Okay.
I have yet to find a situation that doesn't have some challenge.
When when you're trying to do the things that we were doing during my time at NASA or what you what Project Moon Hut is trying to do is there are always good there are obviously challenges that need to be addressed and what are they.

(15:12):
And and and the one of the things that you have to be very intentional about here, at at least in my experience, one of the things I think you have to be very intentional about is this is not just a technical conversation.
This is a technical conversation and a people and a social dynamic, even politics conversation.

(15:43):
You have to be honest with yourself that whenever I have more than one person in a room, I have politics operating at some level.
Yep.
And and if you and and you have to understand those dynamics because much of that is not stated or is not obvious, but yet it can be some of the prime reason for why things occur the way they do.

(16:12):
So understanding those dynamics, understanding the technical challenges are certainly important.
And then,
I'm gonna jump in here before you then move to the next one.
Constraints and challenges, understand.
So let's take this from and and I wanna hear I'm looking for your the way you would do it.
You have an objective or an an insight or the reason you are brought on in mind, you're supposed to hit a target that, for example, has never been done before.

(16:46):
And 80% of the people say it can't be done, or 90% say it can't be done.
You don't understand.
You don't understand, Dan.
You don't understand the physics.
And you're sitting there saying, I completely understand.
That's not the issue.
You don't understand how we're gonna get there.
How do you manage that?
Because you brought up constraints and challenges.

(17:07):
Do you just listen to them and go back and figure out the plan to get them on later, or do you do any of that that seeding that you're going to find new answers that they never thought of?
Well, I think the first thing you try to do, David, is you try to, what the first thing I do when somebody tells me that is, well, explain to me why you think it's not doable, and then let's unpack that to see what to see what we need to do.

(17:35):
Because I I might run into a real constraint that can't be that can't be fixed.
Yep.
But the other thing I've learned along the way is that an awful lot of our assumptions or an awful lot of what we take as givens when we're working on a project is actually are actually assumptions and or urban legend or they may not they're not as, they may be perceived as based in fact, but they indeed are not.

(18:11):
And so you have to work through that.
The I I I we did another inter I don't do interviews very regularly close to another, so I referenced on my last interview that I just finished reading Isaacson's Leonardo da Vinci.
And he was defining things 200 years before they were considered discovered.

(18:34):
And he did a he put a leather sack together where you could go underwater and you could breathe.
But scuba and that technology didn't become scuba for 200 years.
He figured out that there's these, like, kind of little these little things around our body that they're very soft when you're young, but when you get older and there's blood in it.

(18:56):
But when you're older, they're not as soft.
He was talking about arteriosclerosis.
So he was discovering things 100 of years before others have found them.
So the in in the case of, I think, the type of work that you've done, we're we're doing, the assumptions are sometimes so baked in that the earth is the sun is still revolving around the sun.

(19:22):
The sun is revolving around the earth, that you don't get it, Dan.
You just don't get it.
And so you can unpack those assumptions.
And have you fought had fights over these things?
Is it something where you like, I just going to have to ignore this person?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
There there have been fights, verbal, not physical.

(19:46):
You're a big guy, I think.
Well, yeah.
It's a whole thing.
Yeah.
I think well, you've gotta be, like, 64.
6566 somewhere.
6 566.
We may have talked about it.
Yeah.
I'm, so yes.
The, yes.
However, the one, there's a couple points here.

(20:08):
Yeah.
There you can get to a point where somebody just says, okay.
You know, you're you're so tied to some you're so tied to a to a certain mindset that you're just obviously not gonna get where we need to go.
I think what you need is or or actually to to you're you're forcing me to think a little bit.

(20:33):
That's okay.
Take your time.
I'm a Take your time.
I these are not questions.
I'm not asking them because I'm trying to create a podcast.
I'm asking the question because we have 4 phase development of the moon.
We have 8 people, 90 people, 578, 1644.
And I know you know Grant Anderson.
Are you you've met Grant?
Grant is part of the team.
He looked at what we were doing, and he was, wow.

(20:57):
This is big.
And not only that, he thought it was very pragmatic.
And we got to the 2nd phase from 8 to 90 people.
I said, 90 is a lot of people.
And he said, oh my god.
90 is a lot of people because he's he's life support.
And so the reason I'm asking it is when people look at what we're working on, I really wanna know how you get over this obstacle because there's a whole world of, people who love space, who will tell you everything that they know.

(21:26):
And then in a heartbeat, it's not the not not the same.
It's not right.
So how do you get over that?
Because there's there are a lot of people who are telling us, oh, you don't have space people.
Yeah.
What's what's the issue you've got?
Well, you need you need space people.
What?
Well, my first response to some of that, David, is, might be a little bit brutal in some people's mindset.

(21:54):
But it's, when I'm in a conversation and I'm having someone that's more in broadcast mode and telling me what they know and how they know it, I actually it it actually puts my raises my antenna up because what I'm really looking for are people that are willing to be curious and rethink and ask the questions.

(22:21):
So when to to use your example, when when I'm getting into a discussion and they're, no, Dan.
You can't possibly do that.
My first request my first question is why not?
Because, first of all, we wouldn't be in this conversation if we didn't think that the that the objective we're trying to attain is worthwhile.

(22:44):
But, you know, if if if it can't be you I always like to start with the why not conversation when when the discussion gets to this level because that's how you either unpack what's real or you start to identify that it may not be as real as some people think.

(23:07):
And you can get to the point where you just have to get you have to realize that as good as many people are and you've got the best attracted, that they may not have the right mindset for what you're trying to achieve.
And you have to make the hard decision that it's time for them to move on to something else and move on to another team.

(23:31):
So I'm gonna use a a they don't have the right stuff?
I'm not no.
Because they might have the right stuff.
No.
I'm I'm using the movie.
I'm using the movie, the right stuff.
I think that's the movie.
Right?
So I'm just playing with it.
They're not
the right person for what you're looking for.
They're not the right person for
what you're trying to accomplish at

(23:53):
this time.
Yep.
You know, we we had a a saying we used in well, I I use I've used this in a lot of places, but I learned it in my NASA days, which is, you know, the right person in the right seat on the bus at the right time.
Yep.
Heard that.
Yes.
And that is a continual continual assessment that you have to do, particularly when you're leading a large team like this, you have to constantly be asking that question and be willing to ask that question.

(24:33):
Because even though you're you you've established these relationships with these people you've been working with, you may get to a phase of the program where they are not the right fit for what you need at this point, And you have to be able to evolve with that.
We don't have the same constraints that you would have had at NASA.

(24:54):
What happens if the person that is not the right person and the right seat at the right time is the person that's going to pull some of your strengths?
And I'm I'm asking that question so that if if someone in our organization is sitting in our project and they wanna know what to do with the person who is not the right person for what they need, how might they how would you advise them to address that?

(25:17):
The first thing I would do is go have a conversation with the individual that you're concerned about, and and and I would start that conversation with, do you wanna be here?
Is the vision something you still want to to be part of?
And I would have 1, maybe 2 conversations along those lines.

(25:38):
But after a couple of conversations, if they're not if the if if people are not willing to dedicate themselves to the mission with the appropriate level of passion and desire, then it's time probably for a change.
Okay.
And by the way, I I will say this.

(26:02):
There's the perception that runs around about how hard it is to fire people in this in the government, and there's truth in that.
But that doesn't mean you can't change the people out of your team.
Oh, okay.
Now the other thing I'll say here, David, is there's a this is much, much more art than it is science.

(26:29):
There's no cookbook.
There's no checklist.
There's no this is something that's really built upon individual's judgment, individual's individual and person to person relationships, and it's much more a subjective, much more of an art form than it is any kind of technical form, which makes it a challenge.

(26:55):
I I have hijacked a statement from one of my good friends that the political engineering is orders of magnitude harder than the technical engineering.
And that's, you hit a nerve with that.
I won't say the person, but someone we were in a meeting, and it was when Elon Musk's rocket broke at so at 2 minutes and 19 seconds.

(27:23):
And he walks into the room.
He says, space is hard.
See, David, space is hard.
And I said, no.
Earth has humans, politics, a deep gravity well.
It has weather conditions.
It has finance.
It has politics.
It has all these things.
I said, you know, when we get into space, if you wanna use that term, it's we don't normally have a lot of things go wrong, but earth is hard.

(27:48):
Space is not as hard as earth.
And that's what this political side and and what we do here is really the rest is technical.
Can we make that happen?
But getting around these things are really challenging.
And, you know, my mentors taught me that.
1 of my mentors in particular, taught Bob Ryan taught me that early on in my career that I think the statement was along the lines of you're gonna lose more sleep over the people decisions than you will ever lose over the technical decisions.

(28:20):
Yes.
And
boy, was he right.
Yep.
Yeah.
Sometimes you wanna just let me just do my work, but you've got all these people.
Okay.
Great.
So I as you could tell, I'm gonna dig into some of these whenever you bring something up in this case.

(28:43):
So when when it comes to constraints and challenges, do you record them?
Do you put them up?
Is this something that do you use it as a tool for the rest of the team to understand?
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
My my fundamental approach to to to things is the larger the effort, the larger the mission you're trying or the more complicated the mission you're trying to to accomplish.

(29:13):
The more people you have the more people required to go accomplish that, the more you have to be able, as the leader, to keep people focused on the vision and the goals, help identify the constraints, remove the constraints and the hurdles where possible to help them be successful, and then get out of their way and let them do their job.

(29:37):
Mhmm.
And that means that you have to have the ability in you have to have the internal capacity to allow others to go do the work, not do it for them, not tell them how to do it, but give them the, you know, the overall picture.

(30:01):
And here's the here's the box that you're here are the constraints you we we need we need to operate in and then let them you know, they're smart.
Let them go figure out the best way to go do it.
You're not necessarily the smartest one in the room.
I I have this, chart that I show people, which I can't show you right now, x and y axis.

(30:23):
And I say when when a person comes on, I say, look.
In the beginning, you're gonna learn a lot from me.
You're gonna hear a lot from me and from other people, and you're not gonna know a lot.
But our objective is to teach you these things so that we have a cross.
There's an x.
We disappear, become less significant, and you could be on your own.

(30:44):
We're not looking to manage you or lead you in that way.
We want you to be able to be dependent independent.
So there's a crossover.
So in the beginning, you have to learn, but after that, rock and roll.
You also have to have people willing to take that role on when given the opportunity.
Yep.
That's a two way street, actually.

(31:06):
It's a tough one because people say they're ready and often they're not.
They also will say that they want it when they really may not.
Yeah.
They might want the title and and the responsibility that goes with the title or the responsibility to justify the title.
The accountability that goes with it can be the hard part.
Yes.

(31:30):
Yeah.
The I don't know about you.
I don't get angry.
I might be a little bit passive aggressive, but I'm not angry.
I don't yell at anybody.
But you're gonna know.
Look.
You wanted this.
You get it done.
You don't want it?
Tell me.
And it is one of those I think more people, if I was to go through history, I'm erasing my mind.
More people say they want something, but don't understand what the true applications are of taking on that role.

(31:57):
Oh, that's very true.
That's very true.
So with yours, you you have large projects where you've brought on a lot of probably people who fit into this category.
How do you how did you manage that?
And I see this in the categorization of, is constraints and challenges.

(32:20):
How did you make that work?
That's you know, now we're back to the art conversation again.
I just wanna hear your art, your your painting for me.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, each situation's unique.
There is no again, there's no cookbook.

(32:42):
There's no recipe.
Each situation has its own, dynamics and things to be considered, and it starts with the individual personalities.
That's that's the one thing I've learned, David, in my career is everything I needed A lot of what I needed for for being successful in my career, I learned in kindergarten, how to play nice with others.

(33:11):
The, I think the way I've dealt with that in the past is, again, you go back and you have the conversations.
And if the mismatch is there, you just need to make the change.
And you need to go find someone to this the ability the willingness to take on the responsibility and accountability.

(33:35):
The the challenge as the leader is how much flexibility do you have to bring in new people, or how much do I need to learn how to maybe do I grow help this person grow, as a team member, or do I change this team member out?

(33:58):
You know, if I put a it it's not any different than, you know, a Major League Baseball team hasn't won the World Series in x number of years, so they fire the manager.
And they expect because the manager changes that the that the next year, they ought to be in the World Series.
I never understood that logic because how does changing out the manager how how did do do you really think that's the only problem you got?

(34:30):
And and it's the same thing here.
You cannot part of it is I got a team that I have to that I some people I might be able to change out, some people I may not, all for different reasons.
And I might this person might have the opportunity to grow or the capability to grow.
And the other part of this the other part of this that has to be running in the background of the of or at least runs in the background of my mind all the time is my job as much as anything is to not only accomplish the mission and accomplish the goals and objectives of the mission, it's also to assure that the team that we have playing this game or working on this mission is growing and evolving because people do not stay static.

(35:28):
People do not stay in the same role their whole career.
Some people do and they become but they become the world's experts on some very important matters, and they may choose to stay in that role.
But in general, people when was the last person when was the last time you ran into anybody that they are doing the very same job today that they did 40 years ago when they graduated college?

(35:56):
Yeah.
So there is a there is a continual evolution, and your job as the leader is not only to accomplish today and next week and next next month and next year's mission, It's our parts to achieve the mission.
It's also to assure that the team is ready to take on the role 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years down the road.

(36:24):
So you gotta think short term.
You gotta think long term, which means I've I've got to be thinking about, do I do I change this person out, or do I help them grow for the future?
Or do I just work around, the limitations that are there because of the benefits in other in in other aspects of what they do?

(36:48):
It's a
So I'm gonna take it 1 going back to our title.
Right now, we're very micro, so I wanna jump back.
Large scalable projects.
Do you feel that you do something different on a $100,000,000, 3,000,000,000 project because of its scale

(37:10):
Yes.
As compared to otherwise?
What do you do different in this area?
Well, in in when when you're working on a project of that scale, and I think this applies to project Moon Hut too, is you're you're looking for the long there is a there is a near term gain and there is a longer term gain.
The larger the project, the more important the longer term gain becomes.

(37:38):
And what it really does is it just adds another layer of complexity to what you have to think through and have to address.
How?
And the complexity manifests itself in not only the technical strategy and how are everything how is everything coming together to how is everything coming together to achieve the goals?

(38:08):
What's going on here?
There we go.
It's you've got to you you've got to deal with the near term things that need to be done.
But when you're dealing with these large scale project, there there is a longer term, longer time horizon that you need to work with and and prepare for.

(38:38):
And, it just adds a layer of complexity.
Now the way you deal with that is you take some of the team is gonna be more focused on the near term to make sure the implementation and the trains are running on time and all that kind of thing.
And there is another part of the team where more of their focus is a little bit longer range, and now the leader has to make sure that there's a marriage, the appropriate marriage of the 2 of the 2 different focuses at the right time.

(39:12):
Does that make any sense?
Yeah.
We we've got 4 phases of the moon.
So we the way we've outlined and everything we're working on is we've got the phase 1, and we're go the team works on phase 1 and what that means.
Phase 2 has a different outlook.
It's a different size and scale and scope, so that will require a different set of teams.
So we we were looking at it from that perspective.

(39:33):
And and I think I shared with you I think I just shared with you that, for example, that we have been putting in place, to me, it's called foundation.
That's what I because we are called Project Moon Out Foundation.
We often refer to us as the foundation.
We are building foundation, and we just brought on InterTrust.
InterTrust is a company that manages accounting and fi and bookkeeping and finance around the world to make sure things are done.

(40:00):
So we brought on this organization.
They're gonna help us all over the world so that we can get budgets, p and l, all the data, the compliances in every country at any time whenever it's needed.
So that to me is scalable.
We're we're we didn't start off with, let's get a bookkeeper internally.
We got someone who can handle us.

(40:21):
They volunteered their services.
We've got someone who's gonna handle us for thousands of we could have thousands of employees.
It wouldn't even make a difference to them.
And so the infrastructure is there.
It just solves that.
And that's a prime example, though.
I would I would raise it.
The next thing I would suggest is that the group you have working on phase 1 is some level of communication between that group and the group that's focused on phase 2.

(40:50):
Yep.
Because there are gonna be some level of decisions made in phase 2 that rely upon or can better inform the decisions need to be that need to be made in in, phase 1.
So we're planning on that, but what I would lighten up, but what I'd like to ask is, how would you do it?

(41:11):
So,
I'm a mechanism person.
What's the mechanism?
Is it a Yeah.
I I I yeah.
I think you've seen worked with me a little bit in terms of we have the videos that you get.
There's a sequence and there's a podcast that has the set stages.
I like systems and structure because they help people to know how the road goes.
So, yeah, how do you do that?

(41:32):
So, the way I've done it in the past Mhmm.
Is I've always made sure that there is a periodic, and I use the word periodic on purpose because I don't wanna say monthly.
I don't wanna prescribe weekly.
I don't want you wanna do it periodic for what's right for the situation.

(41:58):
But there needs to be some continuous conversation between phase 1 people and phase 2 people.
And, and this is this part is important in my book, there has to be the willingness of the phase one people to slow down maybe half a step sometimes and say, wait a minute.

(42:24):
If I make this decision, how does that affect the longer range?
And then go to the phase 2 people and request input.
There has to be a mechanism where on a working level, the phase 1, phase 2 have the ability to ask each other or provide input to each other as well as the periodic discussions of here's where we are today.

(42:52):
Here are here's what we see coming in front of us.
Here are the decisions we need to make in the near term.
There has to be a periodic level of conversation, and there has to be a working level ability to go have the detailed conversations on detailed decisions so that, so that there's discussion.

(43:13):
So one of the the the other in addition to that, the way one of the things we were trying to do a little bit differently in one of my previous lives was not add a not add an extra layer of, quote, integration to things, which had been a normal mode in the past, which put a lot of bureaucracy into the system, but rather hold people accountable from phase 1 to phase 2 with, making sure that hold them accountable to having the kind of conversations that need to be had, that they are actually having those conversations.

(43:58):
And and as I used to say it, making sure we are doing the right things at the right time.
Because not everything is urgent today.
Some things need to be done today.
Some things need to be done next week, some next month, some a year from now.

(44:21):
And not the the more detail oriented you are in your role, the the less you might appreciate the overall system.
And there has to be that balance of making sure that the system is talking to each other and recognizes that the priorities and doing the right thing at the right time is is of utmost importance.

(44:59):
And just because it's a hot button issue with person a today doesn't mean that it's number one priority for the whole endeavor.
Yeah.
And, my mind is just racing across all sorts of conditions.
So, we have a goal and a vision where we kind of got into a variety of things here.
Is there anything else on that topic?

(45:21):
And the reason I say that is because we we've skirted around getting smart people.
And so I don't know if it's there's something else on that list you'd like to hit, or do we move to getting smart people?
No.
I'm I'm ready to move to get to the smart people because you're right, David.
We have we have skirted around.
Yeah.
And then I didn't ask the questions because I wanted it to go here.

(45:42):
I wanted these in my mind is I wanted to hear how you were thinking about it.
Yes.
The the phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, phase 4, there's a timeline.
It's a 40 year plan.
Obviously, as I said, a lot of little zeros on the end.
And then we've got multiple things.
We've got our immersive, tech transfer, biotech, all these things that are happening, and it's making sure that they're all integrated.

(46:04):
It's one of the challenges if you wanna say I sleep very well at night, but it was one of those things that
you would keep you up
at night more than sometimes it's the the technology that's applied to it.
It's how to make it work human wise.
Yeah.
That's always.
Yeah.
So on the smart people thing, the the question that the I had actually written it down as smart people that can contribute at the right time.

(46:31):
Okay.
You will see a similar you you will see a theme through a lot of what I do is making sure we're doing the right thing at the right time.
Yep.
Because timing is everything.
Yes.
The number one rule in my book, and I'll I'll probably almost to a fault, is you I always walk into a room assuming that I am not the smartest person in the room.

(47:00):
I do not have all the answers to all the questions.
I might have some information.
I probably because of my role, I probably have some information and perspective that is helpful to others in the room.
But the minute or, actually, more appropriately, the the millisecond that you lose the idea that these complex jobs can be done by by one person.

(47:31):
The minute you the milliseconds you start thinking that way is the milliseconds you're on a bad
road.
Mhmm.
So one of my fundamentals is that you are not the smartest person in the room and that you must ask questions and you must remain curious and you must also, allow and encourage, others to participate.

(47:56):
You also have to recognize that you need to get the right expertise, and we've already talked about attitude, but expertise and attitude, and that and the right mix of expertise and attitude is is is get that in the room, with the right people.
The this might fall better in some other parts of the conversation, but I always try to work right to left.

(48:26):
What is my goal?
And that's way out here on the right hand side from a temporal perspective, and what do I need to do to make that happen?
So I start at the end goal on the right hand side of my schedule paper, and I have to fill in what what I need to do from right to left in order to to to accomplish that goal.

(48:49):
And and getting people to think that way, is always a challenge.
And I guess probably the last major point I would make before we go into too much more disc or take this wherever you wanna take it.
Yeah.
I've got tons.
And this kinda goes back to the smartest person in the room is thing is, and I wrote it down this way for a reason.
Listen.

(49:10):
Listen.
Listen.
With an exclamation point.
People have to be willing to listen to each other.
The culture has to be such that people feel the freedom to speak, to share their perspective, provide their perspective even if it might appear to be off the wall or not consistent with everything else.

(49:35):
But the ability for people to listen is absolutely essential.
Okay.
So and I agree with you.
But I don't I do the podcast, so I learn.
So that's why I do these things.
That's if you look at the list that we have about 14 reasons there's a podcast, and the number one is I wanna learn something.

(50:01):
So my question these are the high level pieces of the type of people.
Let's say let's say you're with Project Moon Hut today, and we have we don't have legacy, which is great.
We don't have legacy.
We also don't have a I'm gonna use this term loosely.
I use it I call it beyond earth.

(50:23):
I don't use the word space because space is a geog space is not an industry.
Space is a geography.
If you do life support under the ocean, that's different life support than, for example, on a cruise ship, which is different life support than the International Space Station, different than the moon, and different than Mars.
So, therefore, space is not an industry.
You don't have industries of water or air.

(50:45):
You have an industry, for example, cruise lines or you have m z submarines, but you don't have an industry of water.
So my we don't have that legacy of people who are here saying, I know.
I know.
I know.
So let's assume and just because we're being selfish here, let's assume that you had to start today, and you had to do a very, very large scalable project as you're talking about, and a short timeline.

(51:12):
How mechanically, meaning, what would you do 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th?
How do you do that?
How would you find the right people at the right time to do the right job, all those rights that you had?
How would you do it if I said to you, Dan, phase 1, 2,798 days, you have to have a box of the roof and a door on the moon, and that's only because we're watching Portugal as a 50 c, which is about 122 Fahrenheit.

(51:43):
We're watching the 4th largest lake in the world, and Kazakhstan is completely drying up.
The 4th largest lake in the world, Italy is their major water that contributes to 40% of their farming is drying up.
And in Chile, they have one of those.
And that's just one situation that we've got.
We have a timeline of speed and a huge scalable project.

(52:07):
What would you do if I said, Dan, bring them on.
We've got the designs.
We've got what we gotta do, but we've really gotta turn it from paper to the moon.
I think the the first thing I would do is

(52:30):
Take your time.
I'm we're not in a rush.
I'm I'm I'm asking serious question.
Yeah.
I I realize that.
I think, this is part of the challenge is you've got these important things to do, and then there's this urgency factor.
So the first thing you gotta do is is get get get your mindset around.
These are your your you try to get the right people in the right spots at the right time.

(52:54):
It's not a there there is no again, there's no science to this, so it's not gonna be perfect.
Mhmm.
You take your best shot and you keep moving on and you keep evolving and you keep changing as things as you learn things along the way.
So, you know, I have, rightly or wrongly, I have put, on some of these audacious large projects.

(53:16):
I went and tapped some of my friends that I thought could do the job and got them in the job and, you know, maybe it didn't work, maybe it did.
Most of them did.
Okay.
And and the one thing I have learned, I'll say this, David, is I have learned that particularly from an urgency perspective that perceptions I have had of people, mostly have not been given them as much credit as they deserve.

(53:51):
Okay.
And people will step up to the challenge.
If they know what the expectations are, they will step up to it.
I think, in general, what you can do is you know, obviously, I'm not gonna go hire, an emergency room physician to go do a mechanical engineering job.

(54:12):
Mhmm.
There are some basic qualifications, and you wanna meet those basic qualifications.
You're gonna go through an interview process.
You're gonna to try to get through to the right culture, and you're gonna make the best decision you have.
And you're gonna go, and you're gonna keep it moving.
And then 6 months later, you might find that it wasn't the right decision for whatever reason.

(54:33):
Okay.
You just gotta be willing to address it early, and and make the hard decisions that need to be made in order to keep the mission moving forward.
So do you sit at home and take out a piece of paper and say, okay.
Here's the project.
I need this, mechanical engineer, chemical engineer, systems engineer.
I need a psychologist to understand the dynamics of living in quarters.

(54:58):
I need someone who understands the surface of the moon.
Do you make this list up?
Do you then go talk to a person in talent?
Do you just immediately just start calling their friends and ask?
Do you create a CPM chart?
Do you create a, I forgot the, Robert Cooper created the stage gate.
It doesn't work, in my opinion.
I taught it at NYU.
So, do you create a a process flow and then say, okay.

(55:21):
Where do I insert the people?
Do you do you write job descriptions up?
Do you just talk to people?
How I'm really trying to get granular here.
Yeah.
So the first thing I'll do, I just I'll first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna I'm gonna lay out as quickly as possible, I'm gonna lay out what functions are needed and when those functions are needed to accomplish the mission.

(55:47):
So I'm gonna start with the right hand goal, and I'm gonna lay out the functions that need to be accomplished in that mission and, roughly, where do you think they're gonna be.
The next thing I'm gonna do is lay out a top level, what I will call and this is where the project manager in me kicks in a little bit.
I'm gonna lay out a work breakdown structure of what needs to be accomplished, what needs to be built, when does it need to be built.

(56:13):
And then that's gonna start to tell me what skills I need and when and when I need those skills.
Okay.
And from that, I use that to go get the people.
What's you said you start with you start with your friends first, sounds like?
And then well, I yeah.
Let me let let me retract that, because it's because the friends the friends word has some connotations to it that I I wanna work around.

(56:40):
I'm gonna go try to get the right the best people I think that are gonna fit the roles that I that that I think are needed.
I'm gonna go get the best people I think can fill those roles that are willing to take it on.
I will all one thing I will say here, David, is I am always willing to take people that are passionate about what we're trying to accomplish over that might have not as much technical expertise as the as the top technical expert in a field.

(57:14):
But if that technical expert doesn't have the passion for what we're trying to accomplish, it's not gonna be helpful.
And I completely agree because I don't have I my background is organic chemistry, physicist, calculus.
I was premed.
But if you looked at my c my my education, well, I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing today.

(57:35):
So you learn these things over life.
And if you have a passion for it, the technical could be picked up.
The the passion is much more challenging.
Well, I can teach the technical.
I cannot teach the passion.
Right.
That's my point.
Yeah.
That's exactly it.
So I agree with you how how hardly.
You want someone who cares and is going to put the work and the effort to learn and grow.
So so we've got this so you're one of the one of the metrics.

(57:59):
I've pulled it out of the the formulaic.
The one of the metrics you're saying is I wanna make sure that whomever is in any of these roles, when you've laid out your you call it work, work breakdown structure.
Yep.
And when you're going to find the right people, so now you're going to define them.
One of your criteria is passion over technical.
It absolutely is.
Okay.
It's passion over technical, or or an appropriate balance might be a better way to phrase that.

(58:25):
Yeah.
The the person has to be able to do mechanical engineering if you need a mechanical engineer.
I'd yeah.
There's a they they can't be a biologist and expect them to be able to do the layout.
You know, we're gonna we have I think I should Dassault Systems gave us 5 seats on their 3 d experience.
Well, if you put a a biologist in front of it, they wouldn't know what to do.

(58:47):
But someone like you was a mechanical engineer, would this be like a field day for you?
Right.
So and and the next thing is obviously availability.
Are they available next you know, and then and then you start getting into the but the the the heart of the the heart of the discussion is do the are the minimum qualifications necessary for the job met, and is there the right level of passion and desire for what we're trying to accomplish?

(59:16):
Do do you do you make up a job description?
Do you outline all of these?
Or I mean, if let's say let's use a number to make it simple.
If let's say we needed 10 people.
It could be 50, but let's just call it 10.
We need 10 people.
How do you get those 10?
So I understand that you've laid out the structures, and now you got this work.
You have to now bring on 10 people.

(59:37):
And let's assume that the budget is reasonable.
It's not gonna be out, so you have to really sell them on the passion and that that's why people go to startups all the time is because they see a bigger future.
You you create a story.
Understand that.
How do you figure out those 10?
How do you do do you put down a job description?
Do you just go talk to them?
Do you just go show them, or do you find a talent person to help you find them?

(59:58):
Do you reach out to the network?
What's your modality if you needed 10 people within 2 months to be on board and build?
The first thing I would do is I would I'm I'm I'm choosing my words carefully because, you know, the job description in in the government context requires a lot of bureaucracy.
Yeah.
I I'm I'm saying a a page that

(01:00:20):
all that.
Yeah.
You could turn we don't we don't have that.
So you could turn to a person.
Let's call it a friend or not, and you could say, this is what we need.
This is what we're looking at.
But do you do that even is that is that one of the things you do?
Is you outline what they would do or do you not?
Do you just share the the pitch?
I I absolutely you share the pitch, but you also say, here's what we need.

(01:00:41):
And and you start my first my the first thing I do is go communicate that out across my network to see who is interested, who might be a right fit because other people are gonna have other good ideas, and I trust my network to name to provide good candidates.

(01:01:03):
It is not a criteria in my book that I have to know the people, because I'm not gonna know everybody.
Mhmm.
But, you know, if you have a network that you trust and you have a position description that's succinct enough and clear enough, you know, let them go.
Start to give you a you start to give you candidates, and and then you basically take the first one coming in that that meets the criteria and starts and start get the ball rolling.

(01:01:32):
I I I have gone so far to the extreme on one of these where, in one particular instance, I pulled together, called a couple of people that I didn't even know, but I got a couple of names, to start a pro to start a program several years ago, a couple of decades ago, actually.

(01:01:53):
And they turned out to be the absolute right people at the absolute right time, and and now we're the best of friends simply because we kinda knew what we wanted, we kinda knew what we needed, and we trusted the network to to give us some good names.

(01:02:14):
And and and you just you and and you put the you just got and it becomes a full time job.
So I if I'm getting this right and you could tell me if I'm completely off base, while it may appear that it's more complex, and I'm gonna use an example just because it's visible, you could go to SpaceX's, who they're hiring, and there's, 200 people that are listed.

(01:02:41):
Your approach leading the team, that might be way later on, but yours is I'm going to do my, analysis of what I need, come out with the 10 people we need.
My first go to is to first write down all of the, necessary requirements.
Meaning, they had the skill.
They need to be able to do this, that, and the other.

(01:03:03):
And then you you're going to then use your network as your primary means by which to bring people on?
Particularly for the initial start up.
Yes.
Okay.
Now as as the as as your as as you evolve the organization to larger and larger numbers, now I start to go to the to the LinkedIns and to the recruiting.

(01:03:26):
You you know, you I'm assuming I got an HR function in place.
You got the HR
I like to call I like to call it talent.
Yes.
That's a good one then.
Yes.
I I've spoken to at least and I worked with several HR departments, and one of the challenges is and I've actually been asked to speak on this.
How do you move from tactical to strategic?

(01:03:47):
And the challenge is even the title has become so synonymous with not doing a good job that they're very tactical.
They'll get the they'll check off the boxes.
And I'm not picking on anybody who's in this role, but the word talent means that their job is to is a lot bigger.
It's more strategic.
It's defining the future.
It's understanding the roles and responsibilities, designing the being an architect of the future to meet the desired outcomes.

(01:04:12):
So that's why I use the word talent just because it's we have people on our team say, the minute you have an HR person, that's the end of the organization.
They don't even know what that means when they say it because they've never actually had to build something.
But you do need talent people who can help you find talent.
So that's why just the word talent.
And, yes, how do you get to the scalable is, sorry I interrupt you, but that's the word I use.

(01:04:36):
Well and that's the beauty of this conversation because I get to learn something too.
The, I like the way you said that.
Talent is that because that's really what you're after.
Yep.
And and and I like the strategic.
All all the points you made are are right on.
And I think what you're what in my world, what I'm really doing is I start when I'm trying to get things started, I go to the I I go to the people I trust because that's in the network I trust because those are gonna be the people I'm probably working closest with.

(01:05:12):
And then as that expands out, you let the people that have responsibility for those areas go do what they need to do to bring on the team that they feel that they need.
And, you know, the one key that that's another key element of all this is you have to trust the people that are working with you on the team.

(01:05:35):
You have to recognize that there are gonna be levels of the organization.
If the trust level is there and it's there from the beginning, then to to tie it back to the to to the reason to the title for why we're here today, Trust, you don't do these large scale projects or these large scale missions without a without a level of trust, that exceeds most people's expectations.

(01:06:11):
And you have to you have to trust the team around you.
You have to and then you have to give them the leeway, to go do the same thing at their own in their own spheres of influence.
So so I'm gonna take it a little bit in a spin.
We I just how how do I phrase this?

(01:06:32):
I listened to a podcast yesterday.
I won't mention the name of the organization.
They talk about solving the challenges of the world, and they are a huge, primarily American.
I'm not saying it's, if it was European, they could do it too, but it was a one cultural positioning.
We're bringing the world together.
We're bringing the they never talked about the world except for America.
We are a global group.

(01:06:53):
We have people in South Korea.
We have people in Australia.
We have people in Canada, people in Luxembourg, Germany, south south America South Africa.
We have people all over the world.
And one of the challenges, I think, in this one category here is that the people tend to have their own ecosystems.
And if you feeding people into a system to make sure and I'm not I'm not using the word diverse, meaning diversity of race, religion, creed, that type of thing.

(01:07:25):
I'm just talking about diverse skill sets and capabilities that you wanna bring from a global perspective as part of the directive.
We want to if you bring in the world, the world participates.
And, hopefully, we'll transition to what we're looking to do.
How do you how do you reach out across these borders, or do you not do that just because of the the types of projects you've worked on in in your history?

(01:07:51):
Actually, the way I do that, it start it starts, number 1, back in the functions that I'm trying to accomplish, because there is no how do I say this?
There is each country has its own, capabilities and strengths and weaknesses.

(01:08:21):
And when you're laying out the functions of what you're trying to accomplish, particularly for something like like Project Moon Hut, then you want you want that initial network you first of all, you want those you want that clearly ident you need it clearly identified in the functions that you're trying to accomplish, which therefore forces you to go ex make sure the network, when you're looking for the right people to fill to achieve those objectives and functions, it it should it should all flow together.

(01:09:01):
It's more yeah.
And and I get it.
And I'm we have people who have said and some are with us, some are not over time is they'll say, well, I'm never gonna work with those people.
Like, well, first of all, if you wanna do UI UX for our platform, the Philippines, and I've lived in Hong Kong for 10 years, there are excellent organizations there.
If you're looking for certain type of programming capabilities, I gotta tell you in Lahore in Pakistan, there's some brilliant programmers that can do the mid level work.

(01:09:29):
But if you really want some complex work, you could Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia.
Oh my god.
You're talking some really serious capabilities.
And then going all the way around the rest of the world, I could pick different countries, but I was giving a a a set.
It's few people in the world really travel.
What they do and I I use the word travel loosely.

(01:09:52):
I should probably be more fine.
They might go on holiday.
They might go on vacation someplace.
I went to France or I traveled to, but you didn't live there.
You didn't work there.
You didn't engage with people who were there.
So you have this perception.
I've worked in Bangladesh.
I don't know how many countless times I've worked in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Malaysia.
When, South Africa, Botswana if you were to ask me a question, it's feet on the ground and an understanding.

(01:10:15):
And one of the challenges and the reason I'm asking it is I when you're getting a need, this type of diversity, how much are you going to influence it from you, or are you going to rely on the people you have internally, or are do you have a network like this?

(01:10:37):
I mean, how would you pro I think I'm not saying it as clearly as I like because I'm asking a question.
I know that your work has been NASA, which always puts cons constraints on this, meaning ITAR, EAR, CFIUS.
There there's constraints when you work in the with the US government.
So I'm asking, in the projects you've seen or done, how do you get that global network to to fire?

(01:11:00):
Well, first of all, your points are all right on the mark.
I think, one, that's when if if, for example, you know you need a certain skill or a certain skill set, and I'll use some of your example, Estonia versus what can be accomplished in other places and you choose to go to Estonia, you know, I if I don't have the contacts, I'm gonna look.

(01:11:29):
First of all, somebody comes walking in and it's I I want somebody in the in the planning stages that says, you know, the the best people to go accomplish this task or this function are in country x y z.
And then let's okay.
Okay.
Let's go get it.
It the it the answer to your question is yes.

(01:11:52):
It starts with the leader, and then, b, it is also allowing or or including those larger networks.
People have to feel that they have the ability to include those larger networks because or those global networks because our automatic assumption can be country specific just because of our experience base.

(01:12:19):
And also country derogatory because of what you don't know.
Right.
That that's that's why I brought up those countries.
I've had people say, oh, you can't work with them.
Said, yeah.
If you've ever been to Malaysia, they have a mall there.
And this is just one.
I've again, I lived in Hong Kong for 10 years.
So they have a mall in Malaysia that there is no mall in the United States that is as big, as as cool, as as neat, as as filled, you could spend hours, and that's gorgeous.

(01:12:48):
And if you then went to the child section for children, they have a almost a theme park.
They have amusement rides.
You could leave a child there for 4 hours, and they would never run out of things to do.
And yet you I I just read something about a person whose entire group of people when they said they were going to Malaysia said, who wants to go to a 3rd world country?

(01:13:09):
Why do you wanna spend the time with them?
Well, if you don't know the world, you don't know the world, and you have to be careful of it.
So the reason I'm bringing it up in the way I did, and I was I wasn't wasn't sliding backwards.
What I was saying is maybe maybe, and I don't know if you've done this, you bring in a talent talent person very early on who has those networks and knows how to pull from them as part of this, would you call it, work, work break Work break.

(01:13:42):
Or breakdown structure.
Yeah.
No.
You absolutely do bring someone in that has the networks that you think you're gonna need to, or or think that can help you accomplish your mission.
You absolutely need to do that as early as you possibly can.
How do you find how do you know the right person for that one?

(01:14:03):
These are I know these are not easy questions.
I know it's an art and a science.
I'm actually these are things, if you wanna say, that I'm thinking about and sleeping on, and we we've got a lot going on, and we wanna make sure that this is done right.
So I'm getting your advice because you've done $100,000,000 and $3,000,000,000 projects.
Well, I'll I'll tell you what I what I do think I know from my experience base, David, is, you know, you just you start you start with what you think you need, and then you get the closest person you can to help fill that need.

(01:14:34):
And if it's if it's working, great.
If it's not, well, then you figure out ways to augment.
Okay.
It's for example, early on in some of my NASA work, we had the opportunity, to try to augment some of the things we were doing by by putting some international partnerships together.

(01:14:58):
Yep.
And we started those conversations.
In actuality, they didn't manifest themselves immediately, but over time now, they're actually in place.
It's you just you just have to I hate I wish it was I wish I could give you a better answer.

(01:15:21):
It's it's just the hard spade work of going and starting with what you think is gonna meet the need and then just keep augmenting as necessary until you get where you need to be.
Yeah.
So let's let's assume then.
Let's take it.
If you've got something on your list you wanna bring up and share, that's good too.

(01:15:43):
Please do.
Is let's say you found the 10.
What does Dan do with the 10?
I immediately treat them as a part they are a key part of the team.

(01:16:05):
I'll I'll say I'll I can answer that question better by doing what I am not.
Okay.
I am not gonna be that leader in the room that's pounding the table and the only one talking and did and just handing out tasks and telling everybody what to do.
I am not that.
What I am is the coach of the team and helping making sure that I have the right players in the right positions with the right information to accomplish their jobs and the hurdles removed from their job.

(01:16:43):
I my job is to remove hurdles for them to be, successful.
I am a I guess some people would probably term it more of a servant leadership approach, because in my experience, the dictator in the room, to use an extreme term, the strong willed person in the room has actually led us down the path where we have missed things and and has and and the resulting failures, very visible failures, have not been for yes.

(01:17:23):
They manifest themselves in technical ways, but they've really been because of the way the people part of the operation worked.
Hubble Space Telescope mirrors was not a yes.
It was a technical issue, but the reason that technical issue came to pass was because of the way the people operated.

(01:17:46):
And I can make the similar comments about Challenger in Colombia.
And if there's any lesson I've learned along the way, it's that the no matter and and and part of the reason why I structured the outline the way I did for today's conversation is we can have all the technical conversation anybody wants, and I can have that up one side and down the other.

(01:18:13):
The reality of it is that it's the people part that makes it happen, and the people part is the hard part.
Yeah.
Well, I I I'm gonna re re rephrase.
I would say the people part is the hard part.
Yet for leadership, they don't understand it's the systems and structure that enable the people part, and they don't spend enough time on the systems and structure to make the people be able to perform.

(01:18:39):
And I'll give the example of going back to, well, I talked about InterTrust.
So we're putting in a financial accounting system, which is amazing.
That would be helpful.
We just we have Kirkland and Ellis, which you just shared with me earlier.
Your son is now working at Kirkland and Ellis.
So Kirkland and Ellis is building our compliance program for us.
So in the United States, there's EARS, just for anybody who's I sometimes have to do this, EIR, ITAR, and CFIUS.

(01:19:06):
Those are constraints that the US government puts on for the transfer of intellectual property that could be damaging to the government.
And that also exists in Germany.
It exists in Israel.
It exists in Russia.
It exists all over.
It's not just America.
But we have Kirkland and Ellis building that compliance program.
So it's the hard part, I think, for leadership is to know how to build the systems and structure that allows the individuals to be talented.

(01:19:33):
And if I may add one to your list Mhmm.
The leaders establish the culture to make those systems successful.
How do you do that?
By your actions and by your words.
I've got all kinds of different stories running through my

(01:19:57):
Pick one because I'm I'm gonna break it down.
What are the actions?
What are
the what are what are the what are the actions and what are the, words?
The the the the actions are, number 1, as I mentioned earlier, being curious and listening and trusting people.
But you have to establish a culture where people feel the freedom to bring in bad news, to bring in problems without necessarily having solutions.

(01:20:31):
And you have to have a culture where people are willing you you have to have the systems and the processes, as you've mentioned, and the culture that allows, those systems to operate efficiently with with the best possible info and timely information exchange among the team so that the team can go do their job.

(01:21:01):
The the example I use, David, is World Cup Soccer.
Okay.
There isn't a team there isn't a national team that wins the World Cup every 4 years without the ability.
The reason they win is because everybody knows their positions, and they're playing their positions.
They also know how their role interacts with others on the field, and they are and they are very clearly working that interaction in a positive direction.

(01:21:33):
And to get to your to get to your question, the manager of that World Cup soccer team has to encourage and hold people accountable to do exactly what I just described.
So the leader has a very key role, and I don't think we talk about culture.

(01:21:55):
We talk about communication.
What we don't fully understand or sometimes fully don't take account of is that our actions and the way we behave are are key to how a lot of this works and is successful.

(01:22:17):
Now the next question you're gonna ask me, because the students have asked me this question, is gonna be, well, how do you you know, what what do you do to make it work?
Mhmm.
And I say it's really simple.
It's a lot simpler than we'd like to make it.
We try to make things harder than they need to be.
The answer is really simple.
Treat others as you want to be treated.

(01:22:42):
I don't wanna be yelled and screamed at.
I wanna be told when I'm not meeting expectations.
I wanna be told what I need to accomplish.
Treat others the way you wanna be treated, and you're 90% of the way there to making sure you have the right culture.

(01:23:04):
I wish it was so easy because people, including myself, we don't see ourselves well enough to be able to know.
Oh, I we I am doing that.
No.
You're not.
You just treated me like garbage.
No.
I was I was helping you.
So it it I agree with you.
If if the world there's a there's a data point out there, and it's not ex I don't have it in my head that do you know the number one reason people join an organization, a brand, or a company?

(01:23:35):
Do you know the number one reason?
Not I might, but I'm probably gonna.
They they go because they believe going there will help them grow, learn, and further their career.
Right.
It's
not complicated.
The number one reason people leave, and these are my data points that I've learned, the number one pea reason people leave

(01:23:59):
It's because it's not doing that.
They're not learning, and it's because of their boss.
Right.
It's
combined.
And the person that and I hate I don't like the word boss, but I'm using it in a derogatory sentence here.
That person that they report to and where they're supposed to be learning, growing, doing, I'm gonna move on because I can learn and grow someplace else.
People always say, oh, it's financial.

(01:24:20):
It's how much they make.
No.
People join a lot of organizations, nonprofit, profit, government, military education.
They all different sectors.
They they do because they believe that their future is best served this way.
And the challenge is when we say treat other people the way we wanted them to be treated, it I it's a tough one for people.

(01:24:46):
Well, it requires a certain level of self awareness.
Yeah.
That's a good word.
That you said it better than I did.
And and and which which leads me back to a previous part of this conversation is that's one of the key things I interview for or I look for when I'm putting a team together is the self awareness.

(01:25:07):
For example
Yeah.
One of my favorite interview questions.
And I don't y'all well, this will go out on the podcast, and heaven only knows what happens with it.
No.
No one no no one actually listens to this.
Come on.
By the way, I can't it might get applied to me one day.
My favorite one of my favorite interview questions is, what are three strengths and weaknesses, and what are you doing to correct the weaknesses?

(01:25:34):
Now that sounds easy off the top, but just go just go figure out just take a little study and see how many people can actually come up with 3 different weaknesses.
And I underline the word different.
Yeah.
Not saying the same thing different ways.
Three different weaknesses if and and I've I have done interviews where I get 1, maybe 2, but if I don't get 3, then that tells me that that person's self is not as self aware as they need to be.

(01:26:06):
So you you don't have to answer it, but I'm gonna ask you.
Do you have 3?
Yes.
I do.
Okay.
It it's I the I I'm gonna go back to this 90%.
They don't have their own answer for themselves.
They wanna hear somebody else's.
Well, but if you're putting a team together that has a good level of self awareness Mhmm.

(01:26:28):
It it actually starts to build a culture where if they have individual self awareness and they have the leeway established by the leader to to work on the self awareness of the team Mhmm.
Now I'm getting places because now I have a team that is individually self aware, team level self aware, and and that and now they can have the more honest discussions of of in the heart in in dealing with the heart issues to make hard things successful.

(01:27:00):
We just recently a company out of Singapore, through a friend of mine, connected me to fingerprints first to success or for success, and for success.
And it's one of those analysis tools.
You do your you you fill out a bunch of questions and it comes back.
And we they offered it to us, and I said, before we're gonna roll it and use it wherever, what we'll do is give it a try, and we put 5, I think, 5 people on it.

(01:27:26):
And it was, to them, very shocking how close it was in terms of who they are and what they do, but it was very easy for individuals to see, oh, you're a tactical person in this area.
Oh, you're you're introverted in this area.
Oh, you don't do this.
And it was an eye opener, I think, for individuals to be able to cross reference and see.
Oh, I that's why that person does that.

(01:27:49):
Now I understand.
That's their skill set.
That's their capability.
That's their that's their how their their framework is built within themselves.
And so here, you're you're asking the question at the same time, the blinders, these type of tools, if they're done right, if they're used properly, can also help someone to see what those are.

(01:28:10):
And then it can also help the team see what they are.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then you and then this tool, you can compare.
You could take 3, 4, 5 people, and you can put what they answered and how they came out and say, oh, you're this.
I I'm extremely forward oriented or future oriented.
I I really look far.
And there are other people whose that's a small dot in their comparisons.

(01:28:32):
I if they I think if you have a 140 on the standard deviation of 2 standard, 3 standard deviations out, I'm at the 140.
But when it there's another person and they're at the other end of the extreme where or at the other end of the bell curve where they don't have that.
So you you you can now understand why language sometimes hurts between each other because they they don't grasp it.

(01:28:54):
It's not part of their at this point in their lives, they don't see that.
And and I will give you a a firsthand experience here where I was in a new role and I was working with some colleagues and we were we were struggling.
We weren't there was frustration in our communications and in our working relationship.

(01:29:17):
And then we went through one of those kind of tools you just described, approaching it from one perspective I'm approaching it from one perspective.
The other person was approaching it from a different perspective.
And once we knew that

(01:29:38):
Mhmm.
From each other, then we were able to better communicate.
Yes.
And and that made all the difference in the world in terms of I mean and this was a key relationship in the organization we were working in at the time, and and it made all the difference in the world for making some of the key success that needed to happen down the road.

(01:29:59):
Absolutely.
And it it's not I bet we all can come up with stories on this.
A very quick one, I was this is in terms of just knowledge base.
Had this client once.
He wasn't a client.
I'm sitting in front of me.
He's on the phone with somebody, and they're just disagreeing about this partnership.
And they're going back and forth and back and forth, and I said, hang up the phone.

(01:30:20):
And he said, I'm on the phone.
I said, I know you're on the phone.
That's why I said, hang up.
And he said, what do you want?
And he hung up the phone.
I walked over to a board, and I said, there's 6 forms of alliances.
User as partnership, it's very bland.
It's ad hoc consortium, project joint venture, joint venture, merger, and acquisition.
Merger is different than acquisition.
There are 6.
What are you trying to build?
And I described them.

(01:30:41):
And I and he said, oh, we're not building a a joint venture.
We're building a project joint venture, which means that you're doing this project.
When it's over, you decide if you wanna do it again, but you're not married at the hips.
And I said, call him back and tell him that.
So he picks up the phone.
He calls him.
He says, I don't want a partnership.
I wanna do a project joint venture.
If things work out, things work out.
And if they don't, we move on.

(01:31:03):
The deal was done within less than 3, 4 minutes because the language was missing the tools.
To me, 6 forms of alliances is a tool.
When you say we're a partner, what does that mean?
Are we life partners?
Are we business partners?
Are we 50 partners?
Are we what?
But when you say wanna do a project joint venture, different than a joint venture, project, you're not married at the hips.
And anytime you have a vendor when you hire a vendor, you got a project joint venture.

(01:31:27):
They do the work for you.
When you're done, you pay the bill, and that's the arrangement.
Well, in this case, it helps.
So I think to add on top of it, not just the clarity of the of the the culture, but the definitions and the vocabulary that is integrated within that helps a lot.
Those are the tools.
That's the system structure.
So I think, the the point here in in my mind is that these tools, particularly the engineering mindset, kind of puts them off to the side and, you know, gets frustrated with having to do it and doesn't like doing it.

(01:32:03):
In reality, they are absolutely essential.
Yes.
I agree.
Because this is how you help get the information you need to have the the communication, the teamwork that is so essential.
I I mean, I I have well, you can tell, based on the discussion today, it's the the success or failure largely depends on how well the people are working together.

(01:32:37):
Because the one thing I've learned is great things can be accomplished when people put their when when I have the right mindset and the people with the right mindset are working together because then they start to they they they question.

(01:32:58):
They they think things through.
They think about it from a different perspective.
They use all of their different know all of their different information from all their different knowledge bases to to apply to a problem, and and you just end up in a better place that way.
And that's how you that that's how you accomplish these, you
know, you bring them together in this room, and you you do, you do a a pep rally talk, a directional talk.

(01:33:22):
You show where you're going.
And do you because we're talking about getting the smart people.
A lot of negotiation on price or fees or, what do you call it, salaries, bonuses, benefits, all of that.
Have you been involved in creating all of that?
Is that come from some other department that gave you those, that framework?

(01:33:45):
I have always made sure that I was involved in that, because what that all boils down to are what are the incentives that are being used to get the, the behavior and the actions that you need to accomplish the mission.
And it all ties together.
It cannot be you you cannot, have another group off on the side dictating how things are gonna get done because there's no guarantee that that's actually gonna be what you need to accomplish the mission.

(01:34:21):
An example of that is many people, and I saw this firsthand in previous life is, well, obviously, we need the smart people.
So we're gonna hire based on GPA.
No.
I want the people with the right work ethic.
I'll I'll take a 2 point o GPA if that 2.0 GPA was having to work their way through school and doing whatever else needed to be done to be successful over the 4 point o that had that had the that had the, the free ride through school.

(01:35:00):
Mhmm.
Yeah.
The person who ended up getting scholarships, the one who did help the dog, the animal shelter along the way was involved in community things or even internally.
And then they ended up with a a 3.1 where the other person was a 4 point o, but didn't have any of that, I'm gonna use the word texture to who they were as a person.

(01:35:23):
Well, it's it's it's it's personality.
You know, it's broadening experience
Mhmm.
Which all plays into this.
And I think, you know, a a lot of what we've been talking about today is really bringing in that broadened experience.
So how do you how in your history, how do you find that?

(01:35:45):
I mean, you've asked these questions.
You have another question to add for that experience to do.
Is this just on their CV?
How did you identify?
Well, the the the CV is certainly a key point to go to because that's a, it does 2 things.
1, it gives you, it gives you an entry level set of information.

(01:36:06):
It also tells you what they feel is important.
So you can see you you you get a sense of it, but certainly the CV, and then you get it out of the interview process and the discussion process.
And I think, you know, that's that's why that has to be done, because that I like your word texture.

(01:36:35):
The texture of the beyond the beyond the technical qualifications for any position, is always so important.
It's interesting.
My mind raised while I was doing this, and I said it's 2,022.
And I can guarantee you someone is saying, but you have to check their online profiles.
You have to look and see what they're posting and what they're actually thinking.

(01:36:59):
You have to do and I think today, that's probably an that's not been my role when I'm working with organizations or even in what I've done.
I think today, that's probably a a huge part of that too is, where are they?
What are they doing?
What what's their voice?
And that's a tough one because it's it's mixing personal and and professional.

(01:37:24):
You should be able to say you could have both, but if someone has some of these bad, the the culture is fake as they're meeting you.
The what they're demonstrating is fake.
It's tough to be able to discern.
The Well, that that's yeah.
And and, again, you know, you just have to the other thing you have to be willing to do is you you take the best shot you can and make your decision.

(01:37:49):
And if it works, great.
If it doesn't,
And you move on.
You move on and you evolve.
I think, you know, I the other well so we've, you know, we've talked a lot about the team.

(01:38:11):
I don't know if you still wanna go if you still have more, you wanna go
I I'm I we could go for a long time.
Next one is mechanics to work.
Yeah.
The mechanics, a couple of key things, and I'm not gonna go through the well, what I, although I've learned that this is not as well understood as I thought.
You know, there's the standard, you know, understand your scope, which is what are you trying to accomplish, what's the what's the end objective, and what what is needed to go make that happen, in your budget and your schedule and the interrelated 3 legged stool that all that turns out to be.

(01:38:49):
One of the things I think that's important when we go to these audacious projects is we actually lose one of the key things is that we lose our recognition or our ability or look past our ability to simplify things.

(01:39:13):
We from a technical perspective, we end up inadvertently, you know, coming up with all kinds of technical solutions when simplicity actually, is a better is is a better approach.

(01:39:35):
What do I mean by that?
Well, first of all, if I ask myself, what drives a lot of the issues in in these big projects, it's the number of interfaces and the complexity of those interfaces.
Just the number of interfaces requires as the number of interfaces increases, the difficulty increases exponentially.

(01:40:04):
Mhmm.
And then the more complex those interfaces are just make it even worse.
And I don't think we spend enough time and, and I'll I'll I'll use an example here in a second.
I don't think we spend enough time of trying to simplify the interfaces.
So, back in a previous life when we were trying to, in the 2010 time frame, try to figure out what NASA was gonna be doing in response to the constellation program being canceled and what were we gonna do in human exploration.

(01:40:37):
I got asked one day, you know, okay.
We're coming up with these different con we're coming up with the launch vehicle and the spacecraft and the ground systems.
And they said, well, how how would you manage this program?
And I said, well, I don't know.
Let me go think about it.

(01:40:58):
And on an airplane going back home, I realized I didn't need to think about it too much because we already had the model.
And the model was Apollo with some rather simple interfaces in that I had a launch vehicle, I had a spacecraft, and I had ground systems.

(01:41:23):
Now I will openly admit that everybody's got their own perspectives of how well or how well that did not work.
Mhmm.
But I basically walked back to my to the person that asked me the question, and I said, you know, we're trying to do basically the same kind of thing here, at least in this first phase that we're in.

(01:41:48):
Why don't we just use the Apollo program approach?
And, you know, 1, it's simplified.
2, it is it's already it's already a proven test case that we know that it works.
And what was interesting to me in that in in in trying to implement that was how politics, and other things tried to make it harder, tried to put additional interfaces into things when we already had a simplified system that we knew would work.

(01:42:29):
But because of all kinds of demands and all kinds of different perspectives and all kinds of different perceived answers, we ended up making the job harder on ourselves than we probably needed to because we allowed unnecessary and extra interfaces to creep into the to creep into the system.

(01:42:55):
So I guess my message is that keep the interfaces to an absolute minimum on the number.
Keep them as simple keep the interfaces as simple as possible, and then very purposely put margin in the right places and have as much margin as you can because you don't know everything, and you're gonna need some margin to go cover the issues.

(01:43:23):
So just for for definition purposes, interfaces to you means what?
When I have to have, on a technical perspective, and I've got a wire that has to I I've got a command that has to go from the spacecraft to the launch vehicle, that's an interface.

(01:43:46):
Okay.
Yep.
Or, I have one organization that's doing a part of a job and another organization's doing another part of a job, that's an interface I have to manage.
That's also one of the my that you you might appreciate.

(01:44:08):
I don't know if you know this from, from engineering.
There's a concept out of Japan by a guy, Shango Shingo.
I'm not saying the first name right.
And it's a concept called SMED, single minute exchange of dye.
And it was that he could take any process within an organization, and this is for manufacturing, and he could take it down to 2 minutes or less.

(01:44:31):
Anything.
So if you had a 10 ton press, and it would take you 2 days to move the press over, align it, put it in, have to have technical people, he took it from 2 days.
This is the first case that was in the in the book that I read, and he took it to 2 minutes.
And I won't go into the details of the engineering behind it.
Simple things, 2 cranes instead of 1, so you pick up and you move it over, and the other one's already ready to go in place.

(01:44:56):
They put cones on the bottom on the and then into the 10 ton block so that when you laid it down, it actually was milled, so it was almost exactly perfect when it landed.
I kinda use that same concept single minute exchange of dye that you to some degree, I think as you're using it as an interface, that you should be able to find any document within less than 2 minutes.

(01:45:18):
You should be able to commune you should be able to put something together in certain, let's say you're gonna join 2 structures, locking mechanism.
Locking mechanism, you should be able to do it within 2 minutes.
You should you should fight for bringing it to simplicity simplicity simplicity enough that within 2 minutes, the mechanism works.
And I and when I'm thinking of people, I also think about that.
For example, finding a document within 2 minutes, well, that reduces friction and allows people to do their job more efficiently because now there's not a a challenge of, where is that?

(01:45:52):
It is let's get forward.
Let's get moving.
So maybe that falls into that same interface category.
It absolutely does.
It absolutely does.
We we file every document.
You could try this.
We file every document, not with the name first.
A lot of people do that.
But you can't remember the name of the document created a year ago.
But we file it with the year, month, day with hashes.

(01:46:14):
So it'll be 22 dash 07 dash 14.
It's not European.
It's not American.
It's not it's just 22 dash 07 dash 14.
And what that would do and then you can name it whatever you want.
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Okay.

(01:46:35):
Great.
And then you would say, project x version 1.
Well, when you create a version 2, it's the next date, so it's always gonna be in chronological order.
But you can also remember if I said to you, Dan, you and I worked on this sometime last year, and we have 40 documents.
I can guarantee you, you'll find it within a second because you'll say it was midsummer.
You're gonna look to 21 dash 04, a 5, 6, and 7, and there it is.

(01:47:01):
There's only 4 documents.
There it is.
You know which one it is.
And within seconds, you can find anything.
And because we remember time references better than we can remember who named it and why they named it.
And so we put mechanisms in place, and I've and I'm using the word interfaces here is so that the interfaces are smooth.
It's like adding oil to an engine.
You're allowing it to happen so that that doesn't become the obstacle.

(01:47:24):
I can't find it.
We have to meet next week.
Yeah.
But I have meetings next week.
We have to do this.
We have to do that.
So I think of these interfaces, especially on the job role is making that so that the interface works, the dialogue works between individuals.
Yeah.
I toe totally agree with that.
I think that, you know, taking it to that level of thought is not something we typically do.

(01:47:54):
And I've and I and I I would my experience has taught me.
I, frankly, hadn't gone as far as you did, but I think what we don't do is we don't look for we just start piling on interfaces because we're solving the problem of the moment and not thinking down the road a little bit about what this might mean and what this might imply or what the impact might be down the road.

(01:48:27):
And so I I think we my my plea is that we intentionally think through our our interfaces in in all forms of definition of that word.
Because every time I've gotta take a piece of information and cross from one place to another, there's an interface that has to be dealt with.

(01:48:54):
And as you said, there's possible friction, and I need to reduce the friction.
Yeah.
I I I so I'm trying to kinda bring in some flavor to what you're saying because I I agree with you, and I hadn't thought about it as interfaces.
We all interface.
My Microsoft Teams gave us Teams.
They gave us a 100 seats.
They gave us a bunch of things.
And and I we thank Microsoft just like we're thanking Dassault and all the others that we've mentioned for helping to work towards what we're trying to achieve.

(01:49:22):
But Microsoft Teams has some basic flaws.
If you are ever worked in it, you whenever you correspond with somebody, it everything stays in that channel.
The challenge is if someone's not access to that channel, they can't get it.
And so we moved everything or I moved everything to Teams, and we worked with it for 2 months.
And I realized we were gonna create 4 years from now thousands of files that can't be interacted or sorted or found.

(01:49:48):
So it took me 3 months.
I did it myself.
I didn't ask anybody else to do it because they need to do more important work.
As I removed everything out, we work everything's in OneDrive, and this allows us to be able to share.
If I wanna share something with you, Dan, I can share it across internal and external to our organization, which couldn't do otherwise.
And so those type of things, it's not an easy thing to teach an individual that.

(01:50:11):
But if we use this word interfaces, which I have to think about if that's the word I'd like to use, but I understand the concept of it, is that we're we're taking that friction out of the system because then the humans don't have conflict.
It makes it so that they could do their job incredibly well.
Yeah.
It's the human interfaces as well as the technical interfaces.

(01:50:33):
As too.
So I I the word interface is interesting that you use that.
Okay.
That that's the word I've always used, mainly because, well, it works well in it works well in the engineering community.
They Yeah.
And I I know that.
And that's why I there are certain words that people use, and that's why I'm playing with it out loud with you.
I'm trying to find if that's the word that I wanna use.

(01:50:55):
So I'm sorry.
I'm using you as an experiment.
Do I like that word?
It's it's when one of the challenges with the Beyond Earth ecosystem is everything is an acronym.
Everything.
And the challenge is if you're dealing with people who are not in this ecosystem, they don't know what that acronym means.
And I've seen people just yeah.

(01:51:18):
It's a common phrase.
Well, they'll ask me if they don't understand.
No.
They won't.
They will listen to you go on and on and on, shake their head, and at the end, they're gonna say, got it, but they didn't.
And the challenge is that same acronym, FAM, also stands for For All Mankind, the movie.
And it also stands for Food Around Museums.

(01:51:39):
And it also stands for fabulous, abundant lifestyle, or or or man whatever.
And those to me are challenges of that interface.
Because if we wanna be inclusive in solving the 6 mega challenges with project Moon Hut in the world and not project Moon Hut, the 6 mega challenges exist on the world.

(01:52:01):
If we're going to solve them, if we're going to address them, this friction, this interface, let's use your term, it's working for me.
The interfaces are have to be, they they have to be transferable, not just across a language, but across cultures.
So if you're in if you're in Vietnam and you hear that, it has to they have to be able to understand it.

(01:52:26):
And language is different with different cultures.
Having lived in Europe, having lived in Asia and the US, if you don't have that language translation, you can lose everything in in culture.
So the interface is an interesting again, I'm playing with it out loud so you can hear.
So I I that's my mind goes to how do you make that work, and there's a technical side and there's a nontechnical, and I it's interesting that so I I I right now, I'm gonna steal it.

(01:52:58):
Thank you.
I'm not gonna I'll put $3 in the in the bill or €3 or 30 Hong Kong dollars or something.
But that I I think the word's an interesting work.
Okay.
Anything else in mechanisms for work?
No.
I think, David, that's you know, those I the only other thing I would maybe just go back and and hit on is, one of the the way I people, I don't think fully understand how interrelated what it is you're trying to do or the scope of work is related to the budget, is related to the schedule.

(01:53:47):
One of the things, I think, one of the things that I have paid a lot of attention to that I think has been somewhat successful over time has been the and and being honest about it is the interrelationship among those 3 whenever you're trying to accomplish something because, you know, a change in budget has to be addressed in either schedule and or scope and, you know, and vice versa across all 3.

(01:54:20):
And that interrelationship, I I've I I have uncovered over time how how little people understand that those 3 are actually interrelated and don't appreciate or that they think they can change one without affecting the other 2.

(01:54:44):
And I I I always stand there in amazement when I have these conversations, which is why I'm bringing it up in this context.
No.
It it's perfect.
I had this conversation last night.
So yes.
And I it just amazes me.
And and so I, you know, I I I put this all together and I just sit back and I think, man.

(01:55:06):
You know?
I I I need at least need to make the point.
I need to make the point that they're all interrelated, and I need to make the point that you have to keep track of all this, and you have to track it at the right levels, and you have to do it in a timely way.

(01:55:27):
Because the other thing that the other hard lesson I've learned is problems don't go away.
They only get worse with time.
And so the sooner you identify it through either leading or lagging indicators, whatever it is, and the sooner you address the problem, the better off you are.
So I'm I'm going to ask you, and I'll and I'll put a little filler in there.

(01:55:51):
I want you to go over scope of work, budget, and schedule, but I'll I I will not but I will add to your little conversation of what happened.
I I in our group, I suggested that 3 individuals work on creating a budget for something.
And I shared with them the reason why is that they gotta learn to work together.
They've gotta understand.

(01:56:12):
They also have to understand that a budget is a story.
It is for a financial person, a story.
It tells the story of what you're gonna do, when you're gonna do it, how much is it gonna cost.
It doesn't tell you the full story, but it gives you a story for a person who's that type of person.
Other people wanna read it in words, how you're gonna build it, what you're gonna do.
But a financial person can read that, and they see a story that you won't see just like an engineer will see something that you don't see.

(01:56:37):
And then I said, but here's the kicker with for all of you.
If you if you ever been in a meeting and someone says, see that block right there?
47 j?
Change that to 22 from 20.
And everybody's, yeah.
Yeah.
No.
That that's good.
We'll change that.
And I I'm off in the room and I say, what are you talking about?

(01:56:58):
And they say, well, it's not I I don't think it's high enough or I don't think it's low enough.
And I'll say, so what's the logic?
Like, how you can't just change a block.
You had to have more customers who bought, a decrease in material costs.
There has to be a time schedule change.
There has to be that you you eliminate employees, added employees, added new equipment.

(01:57:20):
You can't just change a block.
Every block has meaning, and that goes to your scope of work and schedule.
So kind of the filler in there, but I I laugh at it because it was a perfect thing, yet you tied it better than I did to budget and schedule by using those three words.
So my question is how after you define each one.

(01:57:45):
Is that okay?
How do I define each one?
Well, define scope of work, define budget, define schedule, like, how you would do it, what it what it is, and then how do you make all of those interact?
Oh, wow.
We're gonna be here a whole another story.
The,
But, yeah, it's it's a it's a very valid question.
This is an important part
of a large It it's really okay.

(01:58:08):
So I'll I'll kinda I'll try to simplify it.
Yeah.
Scope scope is fundamentally what are you doing?
What what are we trying to accomplish?
What are we and what do you need to do to accomplish it?
So what does that mean?
That means if I'm trying to put 4 walls and a roof on the
moon Yeah.
Well, I gotta the scope of that is obviously the 4 walls and the roof, but I gotta get the 4 walls and the roof there.

(01:58:37):
They have to survive in some kind of environment.
Yeah.
I have to understand that environment.
So I have to do some analysis.
I have to do some design work.
I have to do some testing work.
I have to do what work do I need to accomplish the mission is the scope.
Okay.
The budget or I'm sorry.
Let me do the other one first.

(01:58:59):
The schedule is when I started at the right hand side, and I said, this is when I need to accomplish this mission, and I've worked backwards right to left to figure out what I need to do when I need to do it.
That's my schedule.
Mhmm.
Now, obviously, it's an iterative process to get there.
You don't just do it once, but, you know, there's there's work here to

(01:59:20):
Especially on a huge project.
And then the budget is, okay.
This is the work I'm gonna do.
This is when I'm gonna do it.
This is how much money, financial resources I need to be able to accomplish this work in the time frame I have laid out.
Yeah.
And so that's the way I define the 3.

(01:59:43):
Works for me.
And then and and as you can tell, they're all interrelated because I gotta do the work.
I gotta know when I'm gonna do the work, and then I gotta figure out how much it's gonna cost to do the work.
And doing the work over a long period of time might be cheaper or it might be more expensive than doing it in a shorter period of time, but I gotta I I gotta know what I have to know what and when to figure out how much resources is needed.

(02:00:16):
Okay.
So do you use CPM charts, Gantt charts?
So do you use a project management tool?
Are you just an Excel spreadsheet person, or are you using some other more sophisticated budgeting tools for something of this scale and sky size?
Are you, using word for scope of work, or is this a software application that today I should be using, we should be using, I should be making a call, you're calling for us and saying, give project Moon Hunt this because they need that.

(02:00:45):
What would you do for each one?
So the first thing I would do is I go I go back to my work breakdown structure kind of thought process, which is my work breakdown structure is what do I need to accomplish and when do I need to accomplish it, and then I assign resources to those.
Yep.
Why do I use scheduled Gantt charts?
You bet.

(02:01:06):
They do a couple of things.
1, they force you to think through the interrelationships of what needs to be done when.
They are also wonderful communication tools if done right.
I will show you at another time, I'll teach I'll show you about a CPM chart.
I don't know if you're familiar with CPM chart.
Yeah.
I'm I'm familiar with CPM.
I'll get to that in a second.
Okay.

(02:01:29):
I definitely use the schedule charts, and I will tell you one of the most it was actually a relatively small project, but one of the most successful things I ever saw done was on this small project was we, every single day, had a tag up meeting of the leadership of the project, and this was people around the country.

(02:01:50):
And the project manager insisted that there was only one thing shown, and that was the overall schedule that we were trying to accomplish.
And that's what everybody looked at every day, and that's what every con every conversation we had about issues or what we were doing about issues was done in the context of that schedule.

(02:02:11):
We ended up being able to achieve all of the project's mission or meet all of the project's goals and objectives on schedule under budget.
Yep.
By the way, this was also the project that did vertical landing of rockets before Elon did it.
Yep.

(02:02:33):
Perfect.
And so the Gantt chart is is essential.
The work breakdown structure in my mind is essential.
And it doesn't I I I'm I'm I'm a little nervous because when I say that, some people are gonna oh my gosh.
That's a lot of work.
Well, if I can't write down in succinct form what I'm trying to do, when I'm trying to do it, and the resources I need, I don't think I understand what I'm trying to do.

(02:02:59):
I'm gonna say tough s h.
That's
your that's your job.
That's your job to figure this out in a theoretical universe.
A leader's job is to, in in their mind, create the future and then put it down so other people can translate it.
Right.
Tough.
You have to have the tools, and you have to be able to articulate it.

(02:03:21):
So So CPM, yes.
I I do it to a certain level.
I think sometimes I know in the government, we took it to to an extreme that was less much less than useful.
Yes.
The the people go too far with it, for sure.
It it, if it doesn't give me timely prediction of issues ahead and what needs to be addressed, then it's not worth doing.

(02:03:47):
The only challenge I have with Gantt charts is I'm in rooms all the time where they say this is delayed, and all Gantt software has the ability to just move one thing and everything else moves automatically.
And I've been in enough meetings where people said, ah, that's not gonna happen till next week and whole schedule's out.
And it became too simple to not say, wait a moment.

(02:04:10):
Let's fix this.
Let's change this.
Let's modify it.
Is it cost?
Is it capital?
Is it people?
Is it time?
Is it technology?
What do you need to apply?
Because you have to reduce something else to make up for that change.
And that's the Gantt charts today are too simple.
They they allow people to delay.
So I I agree with you.
I will say this.

(02:04:31):
That was that's where the failure of the leadership occurs.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Because the leadership needs to ask exactly the questions you talked about, and they and and and they should not that's okay.
So one of the tools I do use is you are not allowed to just go change the schedule.
You have to show this is the baseline schedule chart, and we're gonna track ourselves against the baseline schedule chart, because then and and you're not allowed to change the schedule chart until we all agree it's time, and you're gonna show the slips on that schedule chart because we're the end goal has not moved yet.

(02:05:15):
Do you use anything besides an Excel spreadsheet, or is there any software that you're using when you do this?
Actually, yes and no.
And the reason I answer it that way, David, is because, yeah, I'm gonna probably use a Microsoft project or something, but it doesn't mean that I have to I need to have some version control.

(02:05:40):
I have schedule as of 14 September or I'm sorry.
14 July 2022.
And and this is my schedule as of that date, and and now that is locked down.
And from there, I track that I track the performance against that schedule until we decide to rebaseline the schedule.

(02:06:07):
Okay.
And and I have to set I have to make sure the software gives you the capability to do that.
It's just we choose not to use that function because it's too easy to do what you described.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
I completely understand.
What and and right now, we're right back to people holding each other and themselves accountable.

(02:06:28):
What what I would do and I'll get I call Microsoft.
I do this all the time, and I say, put a function in there that you could turn off the ability to change the timeline.
Right.
Because if the system doesn't allow the change of the timeline or the leadership that has the ability to turn off the ability to change the timeline, then you can't change the timeline.
So for me, I would rather not have a cultural thing because then there's a conversation around it.

(02:06:50):
I'd rather have the function turned off.
And then it could be overridden with, like, like, 2 keys for turning on the nuclear missiles.
You know, it can't just change it.
Someone has 2 people have to turn the keys at the same time.
Right.
There has to be a conscious decision.
Right.
I I that's the way I try to approach things is what would make it easier for people to to not have to think about in that way.

(02:07:12):
If the function's not there, yeah, you can't do it.
Right.
Just turn it off.
And that's where I said I with Microsoft.
We moved everything out of Microsoft.
We moved we we, we have these Teams.
We love Teams, but there are challenges with it.
We we use the tools, and then we amplify them by making alternatives such as the dating structure.
All of that is part of that equation.

(02:07:34):
So so you have a scope of work, a budget, and a schedule.
Budget is easy.
You could use any type of software application to do that.
You've got a schedule, and you're using it potentially with Gantt charts.
You were using them possibly Microsoft Project.
So you've got multiple tools you're running simultaneously to manage the scheduling.
And the scope of work is is to use some is it a template of a a scope of work, or is it is there one out there that this is the one that I love, or is it a software application that can do scope of work?

(02:08:00):
I don't even know.
I've never looked up scope of work software.
I don't know that there is a scope of work software.
I think we've typically just done written it up in Word and then used us used the work breakdown structure to just copy and paste in the information.
I just pulled it up very quickly.
There's contract life cycle management.
There's automatic proposal software.
There's work planning templates.

(02:08:22):
So I I've gotta be here's 1.
Software development scope of work, template tips and tools.
So so there's a few of them out there that might be a a means by which that you can put a mechanism in place.
Again, for me, it's a mechanism.
What's your scope of work?
Answers these 12 questions.
You can't answer them.
They'll pass go.
You could create the culture that this is a necessity that, derives at.

(02:08:48):
So okay.
Yeah.
I think and and that gets to another that gets to a key point that there needs to be some discipline in doing this.
1 of the we haven't talked about this, but there is a there's a certain amount of discipline here to hold to hold yourself and everyone accountable to, not just allowing the easy answer to slide things off to the right, but, you know, what are we doing to fix the problem and get back on track?

(02:09:21):
I agree.
Okay.
So we've got recognized challenge.
What was that?
Well, actually, we've talked about that.
Okay.
What what what was it supposed to be?
It was it it kinda goes back to that first understand the problem in the,

(02:09:46):
Oh, when we went over goal and mission, I took you down the rabbit hole of the challenges and that breakdown.
Right.
Okay.
If there's anything you wanna add at this point that would be useful?
No.
I'm flipping through my notes, and I think just about everything I wrote down, we've covered in some form or fashion.

(02:10:11):
Well, that's a good thing.
I'm actually doing this backwards because that's a way to make me look at it.
Well, I I I think I shared with you before we started the interview that I would ask a question the minute it comes up because it's important.
You could say later or we could talk about it, and that happens.
I I think the the best one is best interview in this case, I'll use an example, is we start there's 2 of them.

(02:10:35):
1 of them is Naderan Prasad, and we he was going he started and he talked about something to do with gun with, with rocketry, and I said, well, I don't understand this.
And he said, let's start back where gunpowder came from.
Yeah.
And he and he said and he shared with me that the Chinese to in order to deliver mail, figured out how to use gunpowder so that they could shoot the mail from ship to shore so they wouldn't have to ship a boat to shore so that they didn't have that extra time and those extra risks and everything associated with it.

(02:11:09):
So they'd get to a port area, and they'd fire rockets ship to shore.
So he gave this brilliant outcome, a brilliant thing.
And then there's, Peter, Peter Garretson.
Again, names you possibly have heard.
Peter Garretson started his with, talking he was covering the, what do you Space Force.
And he starts he starts he starts, and I said, simple question.

(02:11:31):
Can you please define Space Force?
Oh my god.
I can't believe I forgot to define the one thing that we're talking about.
And I asked the questions, and and I think that the way that it's been flowing out seems logical.
I I think you would agree.
We we didn't, like, skip something.
I think there's no logic to it.
No.
I don't think we skipped anything, and I've, you know, like I said, I've gone back through the notes that I had written down.

(02:11:57):
I've my my only fear, David, and I've I've the first thing I wrote down in my notes was to myself was I I fear I'm not telling you anything new.
You know?
It's I I learned all this the hard way, in many respects.
I had mentors that insisted that you got into the middle of the frying pan and and got into the game and and didn't just spectate.

(02:12:25):
I actually worked for a group of guys group of people, that made Apollo happen or they were part of the Apollo team, so they had rather high expectations.
And one thing and I this is I I had a I had an experience one day where I was in a meeting with a person who was 2 levels above me in the organization.

(02:12:52):
He was actually the center director at the time, and he just looked at me when I was complaining about some stuff.
And he said, Dan, we don't pay you to do what your boss tells you to do around here.
We pay you to do what is right.
Am I clear?
Yeah.
I'm answering for you for him.
And and I just looked at him and, you know, it was doctor doctor Wayne Littles that did that.

(02:13:15):
And and when and when Wayne told me that, you know, it just crystallized.
Unfortunately, every boss I've had since then has had to deal with that.
It's it's about it's about the mission.
It's about accomplishing the mission.
It's about doing the right thing so that this all works.

(02:13:36):
So if I can help you, or give you, some direction here on why it's valuable so that your fear is allayed, you I think I sent you a copy of paid to think.
It took 12 years to write 14 complete revisions over 40 50 countries in the book, over 400 examples.
I was there for 72% of them.
I've I've spent a lot of time on this, but that doesn't mean that I can't learn something.

(02:14:00):
So let me give you an example.
There's if you think about horse racing, you don't have to love it, hate it.
Just think about horse racing.
All these they buy horses.
They grace horses.
They give them the same amount of food.
They train them every day, and they bring them to, say, let's use the Kentucky Derby.
They put them into this little box, and the gun goes off and, ram, they're running.
And they go to horse, turn 1, and they're racing neck and neck, and they go to turn 2.

(02:14:24):
And, normally, in the back, when you're watching that 2 to 3, you can see that they're net they're going back and forth, and one is expanding out, and the other one falls back, and then they change turn 3 and then turn 4.
And as they're going down right in front of everybody and the crowd is cheering, there is this phrase known around the world, and it is the horse wins by a nose.

(02:14:48):
What happens to the other horse?
It loses by a nose.
Yep.
And while there's a whole set of other horses on the track, oftentimes winning by a nose is the difference between winning the entire purse.
The other one gets $250,000 and a slap on the rear, and this one gets the stud for the rest of their lives.

(02:15:12):
The difference is that it's not that I was looking for the miracle cures, and and I think people are listening in here.
What we're looking for I'm looking for is to learn from your experiences.
So to find the one missing by a nose that I might not have used in the the best way, or or, for example, let's take that word that I'm actually looking up that we just talked about with the eye.

(02:15:37):
Interfaces.
Interfaces to we the word interface might be a better way for me to be able to describe something that is useful in this context.
So the there's a win by a nose, lose by a nose here, and I wasn't looking for miracles.
I was asking a person who's worked on $100,000,000 projects and $1,000,000,000 projects, and I too have been involved in I work with the CEOs of Maersk and Dole and, Infosys and Wipro and companies around the world.

(02:16:06):
I've been involved in large projects, but that doesn't mean I can't learn something, and I'm looking for the noses here.
I'm looking for those little things that I might I might have forgotten about or didn't aren't paying attention to.
And that old saying when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
To that.
You can almost overlay that.
We're evolving with so many interesting, things.

(02:16:31):
Yesterday, I was on the phone with Doris Taylor.
She just invented the first heart or created the first heart using human cells by creating a skeleton, human cells that you could put into a body, and the expectation is you won't need the $30,000 a month of medicines from the rejection.
It will actually incorporate into your body.
Amazing person, Doris.

(02:16:53):
She's a in a Mearth Biotech, you know, with us.
She wants to work with us.
She's been known for a few years, and she just did a video for CNN.
It was fabulous, but I'm with her because I'm learning.
She's She's one of the top in the world.
I don't know what she does.
I'm learning.
So with you, Dan, I was learning.
And so it don't don't this fear is because you were I I I'm not gonna ask the question, but I think it is, and you can confirm it.

(02:17:16):
I think it was because you were expecting that you could bring the mother lode, and I was looking for you to bring the the the noses.
Does that make sense?
It makes perfect sense.
And as, you know, you and everybody find finds it useful, I'm more than happy.
I I will say this.
I I have found it like I've mentioned earlier, I found it interesting what I have come to learn and come to believe is ought to be conventional wisdom, is not so conventional.

(02:17:49):
And so, you have to keep reminding people.
I you know, I've actually a lot of this conversation we just had, in much shorter form, I've given to other I've given to students.
I've given to Hill staff and others, and it always is interesting to me to to learn how people you know, I'm always willing to share the experience because hopefully somebody can get a nugget or maybe a bunch of nuggets that they can go use to to make things better.

(02:18:19):
So all good on my part.
Yeah.
And the questions, I asked questions of things that I'd heard before, but but I wanna hear from you because you'll give a different perspective.
So, yeah, my my hope is you'll be able to use this.
I didn't think about this.
You'll be able to instead of saying to somebody, let me go over this with you, you'll say, listen to the podcast.
The these questions will be answered in the podcast because you're trying to do something that's huge, scalable, or not even.

(02:18:44):
There are lessons in there that are valuable.
So maybe those short segments, you could also relay this, and I'm not trying to get listeners.
Please don't take it that way.
It's just that there's value, and you now have it recorded.
So I think this is great.
Oh, I I wanna thank you, Dan, for being here.
I would like to thank everybody, for being for thank everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen in.

(02:19:08):
I do hope that you learned something today that will make a difference in your life and the lives of others.
The project Moon Hunter Foundation again is where we look to establish a box with a roof and a door on the moon through the accelerated development of an earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from that endeavor back on earth to improve how we live on earth for all species.
Again, you can go to website, www.projectmoonhot.org.

(02:19:32):
We're putting up a new site.
It will be up probably within the next 2 months with more.
But right now, top right hand corner, there are 2 videos that you could watch.
Dan, thank you again.
This is fabulous.
I appreciate you taking the time and being on with us today well, being on with me today, so thank you.
What's the single best way to connect with you?

(02:19:53):
Single best way, there well, is email, and that's, danield@aiaa.org.
Is there another way?
Because you sounded like there was a second one.
Oh, yeah.
There is.
LinkedIn.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm happy to do it that way.
And, but either way, daniel d or at aida.org or LinkedIn is perfectly fine with me.

(02:20:19):
Fantastic.
So if any of you are interested in connecting with us, you can reach me at david@moonhut.org.
You can connect with us on Twitter at at projectmoonhut, or my personal is at Goldsmith.
We are on LinkedIn.
We are on Facebook.
We're on Instagram.
You could find us.
I don't think you're gonna have a trouble any, challenges finding us.
That said, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.
Hello, everybody.
This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the age of infinite.
Throughout history, humans have made significant transformational changes, which in turn have led to the renaming of periods into ages.
You've personally just experienced the information age and what a ride it has been.
Now consider that you might right now be living through a transitional pay age to the age of infinite, an age that is not defined by scarcity and abundance, but by redefining lifestyle consisting of infinite possibilities and infinite resources, which will be possible through a new construct where the moon and earth, as we call it, Mearth, will create a new ecosystem and a new economic system that will transition us into this infinite future, the ingredients for an amazing sci fi story that will come to life in your lifetime.
This podcast is brought to you by the Project Moon Hot Foundation, where we look to establish a box with a roof and a door on the moon, a moon hot, h u t, we were named by NASA, through the accelerated development of an earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and paradigm shifting thinking from that endeavor back on earth to improve how we live on earth for all species.
If you're interested, you can go to www.projectmoonhot.org.
In the top right hand corner, there are some videos that you can listen to.
Today, we're going to be exploring an amazing topic, redefining and delivering a on huge scalable projects.
And we have with us today Dan Dunbacher.
How are you, Dan?
Wonderful.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing fabulous.
We have you.
I'm as excited as can be.
So as always, we do a brief bio.
So Dan is the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
He served as deputy associate of NASA's human exploration and operations mission directorate.
And I'll add that he's also a mechanical engineer, and he's taught at Purdue a course on systems thinking.
Now there's one addition that I I've been adding for probably the last 15 podcasts, and that is to explain how our process works because individuals have asked how much research did you have to do to be with your guest.
Actually, that's not how it works.
What happens is we select a guest based upon some criteria that, I guess, we have in our heads and written down in all different places.
We're looking for someone to deliver value when we finally catch up with them.
They watch the some videos, those videos that I just mentioned, to get an understanding of who we are.
And then what we do is we ask we bring the guest on to Joe a pre interview.
We come up with a title, just a a title.
We don't go into depth on a topic.
We go into a title, and we select what they're going to talk about.
Then aft this takes up to sometimes 3 hours to create.
After that is done, the guest is left on their own.
Dan and I have not spoken about this at all.
I have no knowledge of where he's going to go.
He's building what he thinks would be a value to teach us during this timeline, this, podcast.
Then before the interview starts, I take out about 12 pages of white paper put on the top the name of the title, the date, and Dan's name, and I have a pen with me.
I take notes.
We don't have the camera on, so I don't see Dan.
Dan doesn't see me.
You're looking over the shoulder as we're having a conversation, and we're learning together.
So that's how our process works.
I don't know where we're gonna go, and we're gonna have fun going there.
So let's get started.
Dan, do you have an outline for us?
I do have an outline.
That's fabulous.
Can you please give it?
Yeah.
I'd be happy to.
First, is understand the goal, and the vision.
The next one is get the smart people that can make it happen.
And then we get into a little bit of the mechanics of how to go make some of this stuff work, recognizing that the difficulty or recognize some of the challenges that you have.
And then I a lot of discussion about team and what it means to get the at least based on my experience, what what the team is needed and how you and how to put the team together to go make these, audacious things happen.
Perfect.
Okay.
I was able to keep up too.
So let's start with number 1, understanding the goal and the vision.
So, the first thing I'll say, David, is is that this is always we tend to gloss over this part of the part of the process, and we think we know what the vision is.
We think we know what the problem is we're trying to solve when indeed we might to a surface level, but we don't in-depth.
So one of the first things I'll say is that, at least from my experience, along the way, is make sure you understand what the goal is and what the vision is, and make sure you ask lots of questions.
What are the issues that need to be addressed?
Why is this vision goal important?
Why you know, understand the why behind things.
What are the objectives you're trying to accomplish?
And next question's gonna be, are those objectives even realistic?
I think, you know, from my experience, what I've learned along the way is that we actually don't spend enough time talking about or making sure everyone understands the vision and the goals.
We don't appreciate that each of us have you may we may be using the same words, but we have different connotations, different definitions for each of those words.
And you have to peel the onion back a few layers to make sure you have a good solid understanding of of the vision and the goals.
Got it.
Quick.
My mind is very quickly racing.
You've I think, we shared that the largest project you've worked on was about 3,000,000,000.
You've worked on $100,000,000 projects.
When you come into understanding this, you gave a bunch of questions or things to outline.
How do you go about doing that?
And asking questions is one thing that people don't almost understand.
Well, the the first thing I've been know well, you know, that's a good question.
There are probably multiple things going on altogether.
Okay.
The first one is, you know, try to figure out who the decision makers are and who the who's really leading this and what is the vision in their mind, what are they really trying to accomplish, Why are they trying to accomplish it?
Why is it important to them?
You know, some of this might be pretty straightforward or appear to be straightforward, but I think, you know, the first thing in my book is to is to sit down with the leadership, and I will use leadership as a as kind of a generic term.
It's a great word.
That's what I use.
So perfect.
Because it can be more than one person.
Yep.
And sit down with the leadership and understand what the leadership really has in their mind.
And and the the corollary with this is the more people that are considered part of the leadership, the more you have to sit down and understand each of their individual perspectives.
So do you sit down in your past there and when you've done this or working with do you sit down with a group and individuals, or do you how do you what's your approach?
My approach is, first of all, I get them identified, and then I go talk to them individually.
And then I get them in a room and talk to them as a group, if at all possible.
Because what they when you talk to them individually, you'll get you actually get more straightforward.
Mhmm.
Yes.
And you'll get more in-depth.
The group dynamics can start to affect how the conversation gets had or what comes out in the conversation.
So the I like to talk to people individually and then go to the group conversation, so that I have a a a fuller, more in-depth understanding.
It's it's kinda like a I'm thinking of a a a lawyer.
You get them separated, then you bring them together.
Uh-oh.
I just got compared to an attorney.
Yeah.
So and because of the scale and the size of the projects you've been on, you're going to sit down.
How do you differentiate the the BS from the real?
Like, what I'm trying to and picture you sitting in front of somebody.
What's the how do you bring it
out?
Well, the way I try to bring it out, and I actually, this is one of those things I've I've I've used on the students and the young young engineers that I've mentored along the way is, I use this phraseology I call or I actually, I give them this I give them these actions.
I said, your job is to go ask why three times.
Why do you have to why do I want 3 times is because I want you to get to the heart of the matter and to the real issues because it's very easy in the first or second quest first time 1st or second time you you ask that question.
It's very easy to get a a surface level answer.
But when you ask why three times, you're peeling you're you're forcing that person to think on the other side of the communication.
You're forcing that person to think more in-depth and to explain it in-depth.
The next thing I tell them or the next thing I have in approach is is as soon as somebody says, well, that's just the way we do it around here.
I said, that's licensed.
In fact, in my book, it's a requirement to ask why 5 more times.
Because just because that that's the way we do it around here is not an acceptable way of thinking.
There has to be a reason, and the reason has to be explainable because if the reason is not explainable, it must not be important.
In your experience, when you run into the people who don't give you good answers, how do you bring them on point?
Confront them with or or act highlight a different perspective, particularly if you if you have firsthand experience.
Or, the other thing you can do that I've done a lot in the past is you you you actually rely on your intuition more than you realize, and something might seem not quite right.
And so you you use the ability to go ask other people.
Go ask some outside experts or go ask someone that has some knowledge or potential knowledge on the subject that's at hand, and get another perspective.
It's no different than you get one diagnosis from a doctor and it's a and it's a it's a major decision and you wanna go get a second opinion.
There's nothing wrong with getting second opinions and even third opinions on difficult topics, and I do a lot of that.
Okay.
And then so you do this individually with all the players that you think are in charge.
Do you map them out?
Do you do you do anything that helps the team be able to your future team to be able to understand how the dynamics works?
You know, over time, the larger projects, you actually do need to map them out, and and actually document it and write it down for future reference.
It's, now I don't have a a a an easy tool I can point to.
I can just tell you, David, that, what I have done in the past is take notes.
Mhmm.
Although I'm not a very good note taker, I'll be the first to admit it.
Is take notes or write down what are some of the key learnings or key questions that you have, and then carry those with you for future reference, and also for being able to communicate to the rest of the team.
Now one of the things I also do is take if if if if you're coming into a a situation that already has a team established, you might wanna take some of the key players with you on these conversations so that it's not just one person hearing it.
You might have 2 or 3 people hearing the same thing.
And then, you use the integration of those 3 different perspectives to see what you really heard out of the conversation as well.
So what you're really trying to do, I guess, maybe is try to triangulate in on what it is.
And you do need to do some documentation.
The larger, the more complicated it is, the more you need to write stuff down or record it in some form or fashion so that you have it for future reference.
Okay.
Okay.
That again, we're our project is, I call it our small project, but it's got a lot lot of little zeros on the end of it.
So the first thing and I took you right off base very quickly.
You had a bunch of questions.
What are the issues?
Why behind?
You could pick up where you left off if you've got the next piece to that then.
Yeah.
I think, so one of the key things I always like to understand is what do others the people I'm talking with and working with or working for, what do they see as the constraints?
What do they see as the challenges or the issues that are out there?
Because you need to be honest and upfront about what the challenges and the constraints are.
There I haven't found it yet where there's a situation without constraints of some form or fashion.
Okay.
I have yet to find a situation that doesn't have some challenge.
When when you're trying to do the things that we were doing during my time at NASA or what you what Project Moon Hut is trying to do is there are always good there are obviously challenges that need to be addressed and what are they.
And and and the one of the things that you have to be very intentional about here, at at least in my experience, one of the things I think you have to be very intentional about is this is not just a technical conversation.
This is a technical conversation and a people and a social dynamic, even politics conversation.
You have to be honest with yourself that whenever I have more than one person in a room, I have politics operating at some level.
Yep.
And and if you and and you have to understand those dynamics because much of that is not stated or is not obvious, but yet it can be some of the prime reason for why things occur the way they do.
So understanding those dynamics, understanding the technical challenges are certainly important.
And then,
I'm gonna jump in here before you then move to the next one.
Constraints and challenges, understand.
So let's take this from and and I wanna hear I'm looking for your the way you would do it.
You have an objective or an an insight or the reason you are brought on in mind, you're supposed to hit a target that, for example, has never been done before.
And 80% of the people say it can't be done, or 90% say it can't be done.
You don't understand.
You don't understand, Dan.
You don't understand the physics.
And you're sitting there saying, I completely understand.
That's not the issue.
You don't understand how we're gonna get there.
How do you manage that?
Because you brought up constraints and challenges.
Do you just listen to them and go back and figure out the plan to get them on later, or do you do any of that that seeding that you're going to find new answers that they never thought of?
Well, I think the first thing you try to do, David, is you try to, what the first thing I do when somebody tells me that is, well, explain to me why you think it's not doable, and then let's unpack that to see what to see what we need to do.
Because I I might run into a real constraint that can't be that can't be fixed.
Yep.
But the other thing I've learned along the way is that an awful lot of our assumptions or an awful lot of what we take as givens when we're working on a project is actually are actually assumptions and or urban legend or they may not they're not as, they may be perceived as based in fact, but they indeed are not.
And so you have to work through that.
The I I I we did another inter I don't do interviews very regularly close to another, so I referenced on my last interview that I just finished reading Isaacson's Leonardo da Vinci.
And he was defining things 200 years before they were considered discovered.
And he did a he put a leather sack together where you could go underwater and you could breathe.
But scuba and that technology didn't become scuba for 200 years.
He figured out that there's these, like, kind of little these little things around our body that they're very soft when you're young, but when you get older and there's blood in it.
But when you're older, they're not as soft.
He was talking about arteriosclerosis.
So he was discovering things 100 of years before others have found them.
So the in in the case of, I think, the type of work that you've done, we're we're doing, the assumptions are sometimes so baked in that the earth is the sun is still revolving around the sun.
The sun is revolving around the earth, that you don't get it, Dan.
You just don't get it.
And so you can unpack those assumptions.
And have you fought had fights over these things?
Is it something where you like, I just going to have to ignore this person?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
There there have been fights, verbal, not physical.
You're a big guy, I think.
Well, yeah.
It's a whole thing.
Yeah.
I think well, you've gotta be, like, 64.
6566 somewhere.
6 566.
We may have talked about it.
Yeah.
I'm, so yes.
The, yes.
However, the one, there's a couple points here.
Yeah.
There you can get to a point where somebody just says, okay.
You know, you're you're so tied to some you're so tied to a to a certain mindset that you're just obviously not gonna get where we need to go.
I think what you need is or or actually to to you're you're forcing me to think a little bit.
That's okay.
Take your time.
I'm a Take your time.
I these are not questions.
I'm not asking them because I'm trying to create a podcast.
I'm asking the question because we have 4 phase development of the moon.
We have 8 people, 90 people, 578, 1644.
And I know you know Grant Anderson.
Are you you've met Grant?
Grant is part of the team.
He looked at what we were doing, and he was, wow.
This is big.
And not only that, he thought it was very pragmatic.
And we got to the 2nd phase from 8 to 90 people.
I said, 90 is a lot of people.
And he said, oh my god.
90 is a lot of people because he's he's life support.
And so the reason I'm asking it is when people look at what we're working on, I really wanna know how you get over this obstacle because there's a whole world of, people who love space, who will tell you everything that they know.
And then in a heartbeat, it's not the not not the same.
It's not right.
So how do you get over that?
Because there's there are a lot of people who are telling us, oh, you don't have space people.
Yeah.
What's what's the issue you've got?
Well, you need you need space people.
What?
Well, my first response to some of that, David, is, might be a little bit brutal in some people's mindset.
But it's, when I'm in a conversation and I'm having someone that's more in broadcast mode and telling me what they know and how they know it, I actually it it actually puts my raises my antenna up because what I'm really looking for are people that are willing to be curious and rethink and ask the questions.
So when to to use your example, when when I'm getting into a discussion and they're, no, Dan.
You can't possibly do that.
My first request my first question is why not?
Because, first of all, we wouldn't be in this conversation if we didn't think that the that the objective we're trying to attain is worthwhile.
But, you know, if if if it can't be you I always like to start with the why not conversation when when the discussion gets to this level because that's how you either unpack what's real or you start to identify that it may not be as real as some people think.
And you can get to the point where you just have to get you have to realize that as good as many people are and you've got the best attracted, that they may not have the right mindset for what you're trying to achieve.
And you have to make the hard decision that it's time for them to move on to something else and move on to another team.
So I'm gonna use a a they don't have the right stuff?
I'm not no.
Because they might have the right stuff.
No.
I'm I'm using the movie.
I'm using the movie, the right stuff.
I think that's the movie.
Right?
So I'm just playing with it.
They're not
the right person for what you're looking for.
They're not the right person for
what you're trying to accomplish at
this time.
Yep.
You know, we we had a a saying we used in well, I I use I've used this in a lot of places, but I learned it in my NASA days, which is, you know, the right person in the right seat on the bus at the right time.
Yep.
Heard that.
Yes.
And that is a continual continual assessment that you have to do, particularly when you're leading a large team like this, you have to constantly be asking that question and be willing to ask that question.
Because even though you're you you've established these relationships with these people you've been working with, you may get to a phase of the program where they are not the right fit for what you need at this point, And you have to be able to evolve with that.
We don't have the same constraints that you would have had at NASA.
What happens if the person that is not the right person and the right seat at the right time is the person that's going to pull some of your strengths?
And I'm I'm asking that question so that if if someone in our organization is sitting in our project and they wanna know what to do with the person who is not the right person for what they need, how might they how would you advise them to address that?
The first thing I would do is go have a conversation with the individual that you're concerned about, and and and I would start that conversation with, do you wanna be here?
Is the vision something you still want to to be part of?
And I would have 1, maybe 2 conversations along those lines.
But after a couple of conversations, if they're not if the if if people are not willing to dedicate themselves to the mission with the appropriate level of passion and desire, then it's time probably for a change.
Okay.
And by the way, I I will say this.
There's the perception that runs around about how hard it is to fire people in this in the government, and there's truth in that.
But that doesn't mean you can't change the people out of your team.
Oh, okay.
Now the other thing I'll say here, David, is there's a this is much, much more art than it is science.
There's no cookbook.
There's no checklist.
There's no this is something that's really built upon individual's judgment, individual's individual and person to person relationships, and it's much more a subjective, much more of an art form than it is any kind of technical form, which makes it a challenge.
I I have hijacked a statement from one of my good friends that the political engineering is orders of magnitude harder than the technical engineering.
And that's, you hit a nerve with that.
I won't say the person, but someone we were in a meeting, and it was when Elon Musk's rocket broke at so at 2 minutes and 19 seconds.
And he walks into the room.
He says, space is hard.
See, David, space is hard.
And I said, no.
Earth has humans, politics, a deep gravity well.
It has weather conditions.
It has finance.
It has politics.
It has all these things.
I said, you know, when we get into space, if you wanna use that term, it's we don't normally have a lot of things go wrong, but earth is hard.
Space is not as hard as earth.
And that's what this political side and and what we do here is really the rest is technical.
Can we make that happen?
But getting around these things are really challenging.
And, you know, my mentors taught me that.
1 of my mentors in particular, taught Bob Ryan taught me that early on in my career that I think the statement was along the lines of you're gonna lose more sleep over the people decisions than you will ever lose over the technical decisions.
Yes.
And
boy, was he right.
Yep.
Yeah.
Sometimes you wanna just let me just do my work, but you've got all these people.
Okay.
Great.
So I as you could tell, I'm gonna dig into some of these whenever you bring something up in this case.
So when when it comes to constraints and challenges, do you record them?
Do you put them up?
Is this something that do you use it as a tool for the rest of the team to understand?
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
My my fundamental approach to to to things is the larger the effort, the larger the mission you're trying or the more complicated the mission you're trying to to accomplish.
The more people you have the more people required to go accomplish that, the more you have to be able, as the leader, to keep people focused on the vision and the goals, help identify the constraints, remove the constraints and the hurdles where possible to help them be successful, and then get out of their way and let them do their job.
Mhmm.
And that means that you have to have the ability in you have to have the internal capacity to allow others to go do the work, not do it for them, not tell them how to do it, but give them the, you know, the overall picture.
And here's the here's the box that you're here are the constraints you we we need we need to operate in and then let them you know, they're smart.
Let them go figure out the best way to go do it.
You're not necessarily the smartest one in the room.
I I have this, chart that I show people, which I can't show you right now, x and y axis.
And I say when when a person comes on, I say, look.
In the beginning, you're gonna learn a lot from me.
You're gonna hear a lot from me and from other people, and you're not gonna know a lot.
But our objective is to teach you these things so that we have a cross.
There's an x.
We disappear, become less significant, and you could be on your own.
We're not looking to manage you or lead you in that way.
We want you to be able to be dependent independent.
So there's a crossover.
So in the beginning, you have to learn, but after that, rock and roll.
You also have to have people willing to take that role on when given the opportunity.
Yep.
That's a two way street, actually.
It's a tough one because people say they're ready and often they're not.
They also will say that they want it when they really may not.
Yeah.
They might want the title and and the responsibility that goes with the title or the responsibility to justify the title.
The accountability that goes with it can be the hard part.
Yes.
Yeah.
The I don't know about you.
I don't get angry.
I might be a little bit passive aggressive, but I'm not angry.
I don't yell at anybody.
But you're gonna know.
Look.
You wanted this.
You get it done.
You don't want it?
Tell me.
And it is one of those I think more people, if I was to go through history, I'm erasing my mind.
More people say they want something, but don't understand what the true applications are of taking on that role.
Oh, that's very true.
That's very true.
So with yours, you you have large projects where you've brought on a lot of probably people who fit into this category.
How do you how did you manage that?
And I see this in the categorization of, is constraints and challenges.
How did you make that work?
That's you know, now we're back to the art conversation again.
I just wanna hear your art, your your painting for me.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, each situation's unique.
There is no again, there's no cookbook.
There's no recipe.
Each situation has its own, dynamics and things to be considered, and it starts with the individual personalities.
That's that's the one thing I've learned, David, in my career is everything I needed A lot of what I needed for for being successful in my career, I learned in kindergarten, how to play nice with others.
The, I think the way I've dealt with that in the past is, again, you go back and you have the conversations.
And if the mismatch is there, you just need to make the change.
And you need to go find someone to this the ability the willingness to take on the responsibility and accountability.
The the challenge as the leader is how much flexibility do you have to bring in new people, or how much do I need to learn how to maybe do I grow help this person grow, as a team member, or do I change this team member out?
You know, if I put a it it's not any different than, you know, a Major League Baseball team hasn't won the World Series in x number of years, so they fire the manager.
And they expect because the manager changes that the that the next year, they ought to be in the World Series.
I never understood that logic because how does changing out the manager how how did do do you really think that's the only problem you got?
And and it's the same thing here.
You cannot part of it is I got a team that I have to that I some people I might be able to change out, some people I may not, all for different reasons.
And I might this person might have the opportunity to grow or the capability to grow.
And the other part of this the other part of this that has to be running in the background of the of or at least runs in the background of my mind all the time is my job as much as anything is to not only accomplish the mission and accomplish the goals and objectives of the mission, it's also to assure that the team that we have playing this game or working on this mission is growing and evolving because people do not stay static.
People do not stay in the same role their whole career.
Some people do and they become but they become the world's experts on some very important matters, and they may choose to stay in that role.
But in general, people when was the last person when was the last time you ran into anybody that they are doing the very same job today that they did 40 years ago when they graduated college?
Yeah.
So there is a there is a continual evolution, and your job as the leader is not only to accomplish today and next week and next next month and next year's mission, It's our parts to achieve the mission.
It's also to assure that the team is ready to take on the role 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years down the road.
So you gotta think short term.
You gotta think long term, which means I've I've got to be thinking about, do I do I change this person out, or do I help them grow for the future?
Or do I just work around, the limitations that are there because of the benefits in other in in other aspects of what they do?
It's a
So I'm gonna take it 1 going back to our title.
Right now, we're very micro, so I wanna jump back.
Large scalable projects.
Do you feel that you do something different on a $100,000,000, 3,000,000,000 project because of its scale
Yes.
As compared to otherwise?
What do you do different in this area?
Well, in in when when you're working on a project of that scale, and I think this applies to project Moon Hut too, is you're you're looking for the long there is a there is a near term gain and there is a longer term gain.
The larger the project, the more important the longer term gain becomes.
And what it really does is it just adds another layer of complexity to what you have to think through and have to address.
How?
And the complexity manifests itself in not only the technical strategy and how are everything how is everything coming together to how is everything coming together to achieve the goals?
What's going on here?
There we go.
It's you've got to you you've got to deal with the near term things that need to be done.
But when you're dealing with these large scale project, there there is a longer term, longer time horizon that you need to work with and and prepare for.
And, it just adds a layer of complexity.
Now the way you deal with that is you take some of the team is gonna be more focused on the near term to make sure the implementation and the trains are running on time and all that kind of thing.
And there is another part of the team where more of their focus is a little bit longer range, and now the leader has to make sure that there's a marriage, the appropriate marriage of the 2 of the 2 different focuses at the right time.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah.
We we've got 4 phases of the moon.
So we the way we've outlined and everything we're working on is we've got the phase 1, and we're go the team works on phase 1 and what that means.
Phase 2 has a different outlook.
It's a different size and scale and scope, so that will require a different set of teams.
So we we were looking at it from that perspective.
And and I think I shared with you I think I just shared with you that, for example, that we have been putting in place, to me, it's called foundation.
That's what I because we are called Project Moon Out Foundation.
We often refer to us as the foundation.
We are building foundation, and we just brought on InterTrust.
InterTrust is a company that manages accounting and fi and bookkeeping and finance around the world to make sure things are done.
So we brought on this organization.
They're gonna help us all over the world so that we can get budgets, p and l, all the data, the compliances in every country at any time whenever it's needed.
So that to me is scalable.
We're we're we didn't start off with, let's get a bookkeeper internally.
We got someone who can handle us.
They volunteered their services.
We've got someone who's gonna handle us for thousands of we could have thousands of employees.
It wouldn't even make a difference to them.
And so the infrastructure is there.
It just solves that.
And that's a prime example, though.
I would I would raise it.
The next thing I would suggest is that the group you have working on phase 1 is some level of communication between that group and the group that's focused on phase 2.
Yep.
Because there are gonna be some level of decisions made in phase 2 that rely upon or can better inform the decisions need to be that need to be made in in, phase 1.
So we're planning on that, but what I would lighten up, but what I'd like to ask is, how would you do it?
So,
I'm a mechanism person.
What's the mechanism?
Is it a Yeah.
I I I yeah.
I think you've seen worked with me a little bit in terms of we have the videos that you get.
There's a sequence and there's a podcast that has the set stages.
I like systems and structure because they help people to know how the road goes.
So, yeah, how do you do that?
So, the way I've done it in the past Mhmm.
Is I've always made sure that there is a periodic, and I use the word periodic on purpose because I don't wanna say monthly.
I don't wanna prescribe weekly.
I don't want you wanna do it periodic for what's right for the situation.
But there needs to be some continuous conversation between phase 1 people and phase 2 people.
And, and this is this part is important in my book, there has to be the willingness of the phase one people to slow down maybe half a step sometimes and say, wait a minute.
If I make this decision, how does that affect the longer range?
And then go to the phase 2 people and request input.
There has to be a mechanism where on a working level, the phase 1, phase 2 have the ability to ask each other or provide input to each other as well as the periodic discussions of here's where we are today.
Here are here's what we see coming in front of us.
Here are the decisions we need to make in the near term.
There has to be a periodic level of conversation, and there has to be a working level ability to go have the detailed conversations on detailed decisions so that, so that there's discussion.
So one of the the the other in addition to that, the way one of the things we were trying to do a little bit differently in one of my previous lives was not add a not add an extra layer of, quote, integration to things, which had been a normal mode in the past, which put a lot of bureaucracy into the system, but rather hold people accountable from phase 1 to phase 2 with, making sure that hold them accountable to having the kind of conversations that need to be had, that they are actually having those conversations.
And and as I used to say it, making sure we are doing the right things at the right time.
Because not everything is urgent today.
Some things need to be done today.
Some things need to be done next week, some next month, some a year from now.
And not the the more detail oriented you are in your role, the the less you might appreciate the overall system.
And there has to be that balance of making sure that the system is talking to each other and recognizes that the priorities and doing the right thing at the right time is is of utmost importance.
And just because it's a hot button issue with person a today doesn't mean that it's number one priority for the whole endeavor.
Yeah.
And, my mind is just racing across all sorts of conditions.
So, we have a goal and a vision where we kind of got into a variety of things here.
Is there anything else on that topic?
And the reason I say that is because we we've skirted around getting smart people.
And so I don't know if it's there's something else on that list you'd like to hit, or do we move to getting smart people?
No.
I'm I'm ready to move to get to the smart people because you're right, David.
We have we have skirted around.
Yeah.
And then I didn't ask the questions because I wanted it to go here.
I wanted these in my mind is I wanted to hear how you were thinking about it.
Yes.
The the phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, phase 4, there's a timeline.
It's a 40 year plan.
Obviously, as I said, a lot of little zeros on the end.
And then we've got multiple things.
We've got our immersive, tech transfer, biotech, all these things that are happening, and it's making sure that they're all integrated.
It's one of the challenges if you wanna say I sleep very well at night, but it was one of those things that
you would keep you up
at night more than sometimes it's the the technology that's applied to it.
It's how to make it work human wise.
Yeah.
That's always.
Yeah.
So on the smart people thing, the the question that the I had actually written it down as smart people that can contribute at the right time.
Okay.
You will see a similar you you will see a theme through a lot of what I do is making sure we're doing the right thing at the right time.
Yep.
Because timing is everything.
Yes.
The number one rule in my book, and I'll I'll probably almost to a fault, is you I always walk into a room assuming that I am not the smartest person in the room.
I do not have all the answers to all the questions.
I might have some information.
I probably because of my role, I probably have some information and perspective that is helpful to others in the room.
But the minute or, actually, more appropriately, the the millisecond that you lose the idea that these complex jobs can be done by by one person.
The minute you the milliseconds you start thinking that way is the milliseconds you're on a bad
road.
Mhmm.
So one of my fundamentals is that you are not the smartest person in the room and that you must ask questions and you must remain curious and you must also, allow and encourage, others to participate.
You also have to recognize that you need to get the right expertise, and we've already talked about attitude, but expertise and attitude, and that and the right mix of expertise and attitude is is is get that in the room, with the right people.
The this might fall better in some other parts of the conversation, but I always try to work right to left.
What is my goal?
And that's way out here on the right hand side from a temporal perspective, and what do I need to do to make that happen?
So I start at the end goal on the right hand side of my schedule paper, and I have to fill in what what I need to do from right to left in order to to to accomplish that goal.
And and getting people to think that way, is always a challenge.
And I guess probably the last major point I would make before we go into too much more disc or take this wherever you wanna take it.
Yeah.
I've got tons.
And this kinda goes back to the smartest person in the room is thing is, and I wrote it down this way for a reason.
Listen.
Listen.
Listen.
With an exclamation point.
People have to be willing to listen to each other.
The culture has to be such that people feel the freedom to speak, to share their perspective, provide their perspective even if it might appear to be off the wall or not consistent with everything else.
But the ability for people to listen is absolutely essential.
Okay.
So and I agree with you.
But I don't I do the podcast, so I learn.
So that's why I do these things.
That's if you look at the list that we have about 14 reasons there's a podcast, and the number one is I wanna learn something.
So my question these are the high level pieces of the type of people.
Let's say let's say you're with Project Moon Hut today, and we have we don't have legacy, which is great.
We don't have legacy.
We also don't have a I'm gonna use this term loosely.
I use it I call it beyond earth.
I don't use the word space because space is a geog space is not an industry.
Space is a geography.
If you do life support under the ocean, that's different life support than, for example, on a cruise ship, which is different life support than the International Space Station, different than the moon, and different than Mars.
So, therefore, space is not an industry.
You don't have industries of water or air.
You have an industry, for example, cruise lines or you have m z submarines, but you don't have an industry of water.
So my we don't have that legacy of people who are here saying, I know.
I know.
I know.
So let's assume and just because we're being selfish here, let's assume that you had to start today, and you had to do a very, very large scalable project as you're talking about, and a short timeline.
How mechanically, meaning, what would you do 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th?
How do you do that?
How would you find the right people at the right time to do the right job, all those rights that you had?
How would you do it if I said to you, Dan, phase 1, 2,798 days, you have to have a box of the roof and a door on the moon, and that's only because we're watching Portugal as a 50 c, which is about 122 Fahrenheit.
We're watching the 4th largest lake in the world, and Kazakhstan is completely drying up.
The 4th largest lake in the world, Italy is their major water that contributes to 40% of their farming is drying up.
And in Chile, they have one of those.
And that's just one situation that we've got.
We have a timeline of speed and a huge scalable project.
What would you do if I said, Dan, bring them on.
We've got the designs.
We've got what we gotta do, but we've really gotta turn it from paper to the moon.
I think the the first thing I would do is
Take your time.
I'm we're not in a rush.
I'm I'm I'm asking serious question.
Yeah.
I I realize that.
I think, this is part of the challenge is you've got these important things to do, and then there's this urgency factor.
So the first thing you gotta do is is get get get your mindset around.
These are your your you try to get the right people in the right spots at the right time.
It's not a there there is no again, there's no science to this, so it's not gonna be perfect.
Mhmm.
You take your best shot and you keep moving on and you keep evolving and you keep changing as things as you learn things along the way.
So, you know, I have, rightly or wrongly, I have put, on some of these audacious large projects.
I went and tapped some of my friends that I thought could do the job and got them in the job and, you know, maybe it didn't work, maybe it did.
Most of them did.
Okay.
And and the one thing I have learned, I'll say this, David, is I have learned that particularly from an urgency perspective that perceptions I have had of people, mostly have not been given them as much credit as they deserve.
Okay.
And people will step up to the challenge.
If they know what the expectations are, they will step up to it.
I think, in general, what you can do is you know, obviously, I'm not gonna go hire, an emergency room physician to go do a mechanical engineering job.
Mhmm.
There are some basic qualifications, and you wanna meet those basic qualifications.
You're gonna go through an interview process.
You're gonna to try to get through to the right culture, and you're gonna make the best decision you have.
And you're gonna go, and you're gonna keep it moving.
And then 6 months later, you might find that it wasn't the right decision for whatever reason.
Okay.
You just gotta be willing to address it early, and and make the hard decisions that need to be made in order to keep the mission moving forward.
So do you sit at home and take out a piece of paper and say, okay.
Here's the project.
I need this, mechanical engineer, chemical engineer, systems engineer.
I need a psychologist to understand the dynamics of living in quarters.
I need someone who understands the surface of the moon.
Do you make this list up?
Do you then go talk to a person in talent?
Do you just immediately just start calling their friends and ask?
Do you create a CPM chart?
Do you create a, I forgot the, Robert Cooper created the stage gate.
It doesn't work, in my opinion.
I taught it at NYU.
So, do you create a a process flow and then say, okay.
Where do I insert the people?
Do you do you write job descriptions up?
Do you just talk to people?
How I'm really trying to get granular here.
Yeah.
So the first thing I'll do, I just I'll first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna I'm gonna lay out as quickly as possible, I'm gonna lay out what functions are needed and when those functions are needed to accomplish the mission.
So I'm gonna start with the right hand goal, and I'm gonna lay out the functions that need to be accomplished in that mission and, roughly, where do you think they're gonna be.
The next thing I'm gonna do is lay out a top level, what I will call and this is where the project manager in me kicks in a little bit.
I'm gonna lay out a work breakdown structure of what needs to be accomplished, what needs to be built, when does it need to be built.
And then that's gonna start to tell me what skills I need and when and when I need those skills.
Okay.
And from that, I use that to go get the people.
What's you said you start with you start with your friends first, sounds like?
And then well, I yeah.
Let me let let me retract that, because it's because the friends the friends word has some connotations to it that I I wanna work around.
I'm gonna go try to get the right the best people I think that are gonna fit the roles that I that that I think are needed.
I'm gonna go get the best people I think can fill those roles that are willing to take it on.
I will all one thing I will say here, David, is I am always willing to take people that are passionate about what we're trying to accomplish over that might have not as much technical expertise as the as the top technical expert in a field.
But if that technical expert doesn't have the passion for what we're trying to accomplish, it's not gonna be helpful.
And I completely agree because I don't have I my background is organic chemistry, physicist, calculus.
I was premed.
But if you looked at my c my my education, well, I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing today.
So you learn these things over life.
And if you have a passion for it, the technical could be picked up.
The the passion is much more challenging.
Well, I can teach the technical.
I cannot teach the passion.
Right.
That's my point.
Yeah.
That's exactly it.
So I agree with you how how hardly.
You want someone who cares and is going to put the work and the effort to learn and grow.
So so we've got this so you're one of the one of the metrics.
I've pulled it out of the the formulaic.
The one of the metrics you're saying is I wanna make sure that whomever is in any of these roles, when you've laid out your you call it work, work breakdown structure.
Yep.
And when you're going to find the right people, so now you're going to define them.
One of your criteria is passion over technical.
It absolutely is.
Okay.
It's passion over technical, or or an appropriate balance might be a better way to phrase that.
Yeah.
The the person has to be able to do mechanical engineering if you need a mechanical engineer.
I'd yeah.
There's a they they can't be a biologist and expect them to be able to do the layout.
You know, we're gonna we have I think I should Dassault Systems gave us 5 seats on their 3 d experience.
Well, if you put a a biologist in front of it, they wouldn't know what to do.
But someone like you was a mechanical engineer, would this be like a field day for you?
Right.
So and and the next thing is obviously availability.
Are they available next you know, and then and then you start getting into the but the the the heart of the the heart of the discussion is do the are the minimum qualifications necessary for the job met, and is there the right level of passion and desire for what we're trying to accomplish?
Do do you do you make up a job description?
Do you outline all of these?
Or I mean, if let's say let's use a number to make it simple.
If let's say we needed 10 people.
It could be 50, but let's just call it 10.
We need 10 people.
How do you get those 10?
So I understand that you've laid out the structures, and now you got this work.
You have to now bring on 10 people.
And let's assume that the budget is reasonable.
It's not gonna be out, so you have to really sell them on the passion and that that's why people go to startups all the time is because they see a bigger future.
You you create a story.
Understand that.
How do you figure out those 10?
How do you do do you put down a job description?
Do you just go talk to them?
Do you just go show them, or do you find a talent person to help you find them?
Do you reach out to the network?
What's your modality if you needed 10 people within 2 months to be on board and build?
The first thing I would do is I would I'm I'm I'm choosing my words carefully because, you know, the job description in in the government context requires a lot of bureaucracy.
Yeah.
I I'm I'm saying a a page that
all that.
Yeah.
You could turn we don't we don't have that.
So you could turn to a person.
Let's call it a friend or not, and you could say, this is what we need.
This is what we're looking at.
But do you do that even is that is that one of the things you do?
Is you outline what they would do or do you not?
Do you just share the the pitch?
I I absolutely you share the pitch, but you also say, here's what we need.
And and you start my first my the first thing I do is go communicate that out across my network to see who is interested, who might be a right fit because other people are gonna have other good ideas, and I trust my network to name to provide good candidates.
It is not a criteria in my book that I have to know the people, because I'm not gonna know everybody.
Mhmm.
But, you know, if you have a network that you trust and you have a position description that's succinct enough and clear enough, you know, let them go.
Start to give you a you start to give you candidates, and and then you basically take the first one coming in that that meets the criteria and starts and start get the ball rolling.
I I I have gone so far to the extreme on one of these where, in one particular instance, I pulled together, called a couple of people that I didn't even know, but I got a couple of names, to start a pro to start a program several years ago, a couple of decades ago, actually.
And they turned out to be the absolute right people at the absolute right time, and and now we're the best of friends simply because we kinda knew what we wanted, we kinda knew what we needed, and we trusted the network to to give us some good names.
And and and you just you and and you put the you just got and it becomes a full time job.
So I if I'm getting this right and you could tell me if I'm completely off base, while it may appear that it's more complex, and I'm gonna use an example just because it's visible, you could go to SpaceX's, who they're hiring, and there's, 200 people that are listed.
Your approach leading the team, that might be way later on, but yours is I'm going to do my, analysis of what I need, come out with the 10 people we need.
My first go to is to first write down all of the, necessary requirements.
Meaning, they had the skill.
They need to be able to do this, that, and the other.
And then you you're going to then use your network as your primary means by which to bring people on?
Particularly for the initial start up.
Yes.
Okay.
Now as as the as as your as as you evolve the organization to larger and larger numbers, now I start to go to the to the LinkedIns and to the recruiting.
You you know, you I'm assuming I got an HR function in place.
You got the HR
I like to call I like to call it talent.
Yes.
That's a good one then.
Yes.
I I've spoken to at least and I worked with several HR departments, and one of the challenges is and I've actually been asked to speak on this.
How do you move from tactical to strategic?
And the challenge is even the title has become so synonymous with not doing a good job that they're very tactical.
They'll get the they'll check off the boxes.
And I'm not picking on anybody who's in this role, but the word talent means that their job is to is a lot bigger.
It's more strategic.
It's defining the future.
It's understanding the roles and responsibilities, designing the being an architect of the future to meet the desired outcomes.
So that's why I use the word talent just because it's we have people on our team say, the minute you have an HR person, that's the end of the organization.
They don't even know what that means when they say it because they've never actually had to build something.
But you do need talent people who can help you find talent.
So that's why just the word talent.
And, yes, how do you get to the scalable is, sorry I interrupt you, but that's the word I use.
Well and that's the beauty of this conversation because I get to learn something too.
The, I like the way you said that.
Talent is that because that's really what you're after.
Yep.
And and and I like the strategic.
All all the points you made are are right on.
And I think what you're what in my world, what I'm really doing is I start when I'm trying to get things started, I go to the I I go to the people I trust because that's in the network I trust because those are gonna be the people I'm probably working closest with.
And then as that expands out, you let the people that have responsibility for those areas go do what they need to do to bring on the team that they feel that they need.
And, you know, the one key that that's another key element of all this is you have to trust the people that are working with you on the team.
You have to recognize that there are gonna be levels of the organization.
If the trust level is there and it's there from the beginning, then to to tie it back to the to to the reason to the title for why we're here today, Trust, you don't do these large scale projects or these large scale missions without a without a level of trust, that exceeds most people's expectations.
And you have to you have to trust the team around you.
You have to and then you have to give them the leeway, to go do the same thing at their own in their own spheres of influence.
So so I'm gonna take it a little bit in a spin.
We I just how how do I phrase this?
I listened to a podcast yesterday.
I won't mention the name of the organization.
They talk about solving the challenges of the world, and they are a huge, primarily American.
I'm not saying it's, if it was European, they could do it too, but it was a one cultural positioning.
We're bringing the world together.
We're bringing the they never talked about the world except for America.
We are a global group.
We have people in South Korea.
We have people in Australia.
We have people in Canada, people in Luxembourg, Germany, south south America South Africa.
We have people all over the world.
And one of the challenges, I think, in this one category here is that the people tend to have their own ecosystems.
And if you feeding people into a system to make sure and I'm not I'm not using the word diverse, meaning diversity of race, religion, creed, that type of thing.
I'm just talking about diverse skill sets and capabilities that you wanna bring from a global perspective as part of the directive.
We want to if you bring in the world, the world participates.
And, hopefully, we'll transition to what we're looking to do.
How do you how do you reach out across these borders, or do you not do that just because of the the types of projects you've worked on in in your history?
Actually, the way I do that, it start it starts, number 1, back in the functions that I'm trying to accomplish, because there is no how do I say this?
There is each country has its own, capabilities and strengths and weaknesses.
And when you're laying out the functions of what you're trying to accomplish, particularly for something like like Project Moon Hut, then you want you want that initial network you first of all, you want those you want that clearly ident you need it clearly identified in the functions that you're trying to accomplish, which therefore forces you to go ex make sure the network, when you're looking for the right people to fill to achieve those objectives and functions, it it should it should all flow together.
It's more yeah.
And and I get it.
And I'm we have people who have said and some are with us, some are not over time is they'll say, well, I'm never gonna work with those people.
Like, well, first of all, if you wanna do UI UX for our platform, the Philippines, and I've lived in Hong Kong for 10 years, there are excellent organizations there.
If you're looking for certain type of programming capabilities, I gotta tell you in Lahore in Pakistan, there's some brilliant programmers that can do the mid level work.
But if you really want some complex work, you could Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia.
Oh my god.
You're talking some really serious capabilities.
And then going all the way around the rest of the world, I could pick different countries, but I was giving a a a set.
It's few people in the world really travel.
What they do and I I use the word travel loosely.
I should probably be more fine.
They might go on holiday.
They might go on vacation someplace.
I went to France or I traveled to, but you didn't live there.
You didn't work there.
You didn't engage with people who were there.
So you have this perception.
I've worked in Bangladesh.
I don't know how many countless times I've worked in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Malaysia.
When, South Africa, Botswana if you were to ask me a question, it's feet on the ground and an understanding.
And one of the challenges and the reason I'm asking it is I when you're getting a need, this type of diversity, how much are you going to influence it from you, or are you going to rely on the people you have internally, or are do you have a network like this?
I mean, how would you pro I think I'm not saying it as clearly as I like because I'm asking a question.
I know that your work has been NASA, which always puts cons constraints on this, meaning ITAR, EAR, CFIUS.
There there's constraints when you work in the with the US government.
So I'm asking, in the projects you've seen or done, how do you get that global network to to fire?
Well, first of all, your points are all right on the mark.
I think, one, that's when if if, for example, you know you need a certain skill or a certain skill set, and I'll use some of your example, Estonia versus what can be accomplished in other places and you choose to go to Estonia, you know, I if I don't have the contacts, I'm gonna look.
First of all, somebody comes walking in and it's I I want somebody in the in the planning stages that says, you know, the the best people to go accomplish this task or this function are in country x y z.
And then let's okay.
Okay.
Let's go get it.
It the it the answer to your question is yes.
It starts with the leader, and then, b, it is also allowing or or including those larger networks.
People have to feel that they have the ability to include those larger networks because or those global networks because our automatic assumption can be country specific just because of our experience base.
And also country derogatory because of what you don't know.
Right.
That that's that's why I brought up those countries.
I've had people say, oh, you can't work with them.
Said, yeah.
If you've ever been to Malaysia, they have a mall there.
And this is just one.
I've again, I lived in Hong Kong for 10 years.
So they have a mall in Malaysia that there is no mall in the United States that is as big, as as cool, as as neat, as as filled, you could spend hours, and that's gorgeous.
And if you then went to the child section for children, they have a almost a theme park.
They have amusement rides.
You could leave a child there for 4 hours, and they would never run out of things to do.
And yet you I I just read something about a person whose entire group of people when they said they were going to Malaysia said, who wants to go to a 3rd world country?
Why do you wanna spend the time with them?
Well, if you don't know the world, you don't know the world, and you have to be careful of it.
So the reason I'm bringing it up in the way I did, and I was I wasn't wasn't sliding backwards.
What I was saying is maybe maybe, and I don't know if you've done this, you bring in a talent talent person very early on who has those networks and knows how to pull from them as part of this, would you call it, work, work break Work break.
Or breakdown structure.
Yeah.
No.
You absolutely do bring someone in that has the networks that you think you're gonna need to, or or think that can help you accomplish your mission.
You absolutely need to do that as early as you possibly can.
How do you find how do you know the right person for that one?
These are I know these are not easy questions.
I know it's an art and a science.
I'm actually these are things, if you wanna say, that I'm thinking about and sleeping on, and we we've got a lot going on, and we wanna make sure that this is done right.
So I'm getting your advice because you've done $100,000,000 and $3,000,000,000 projects.
Well, I'll I'll tell you what I what I do think I know from my experience base, David, is, you know, you just you start you start with what you think you need, and then you get the closest person you can to help fill that need.
And if it's if it's working, great.
If it's not, well, then you figure out ways to augment.
Okay.
It's for example, early on in some of my NASA work, we had the opportunity, to try to augment some of the things we were doing by by putting some international partnerships together.
Yep.
And we started those conversations.
In actuality, they didn't manifest themselves immediately, but over time now, they're actually in place.
It's you just you just have to I hate I wish it was I wish I could give you a better answer.
It's it's just the hard spade work of going and starting with what you think is gonna meet the need and then just keep augmenting as necessary until you get where you need to be.
Yeah.
So let's let's assume then.
Let's take it.
If you've got something on your list you wanna bring up and share, that's good too.
Please do.
Is let's say you found the 10.
What does Dan do with the 10?
I immediately treat them as a part they are a key part of the team.
I'll I'll say I'll I can answer that question better by doing what I am not.
Okay.
I am not gonna be that leader in the room that's pounding the table and the only one talking and did and just handing out tasks and telling everybody what to do.
I am not that.
What I am is the coach of the team and helping making sure that I have the right players in the right positions with the right information to accomplish their jobs and the hurdles removed from their job.
I my job is to remove hurdles for them to be, successful.
I am a I guess some people would probably term it more of a servant leadership approach, because in my experience, the dictator in the room, to use an extreme term, the strong willed person in the room has actually led us down the path where we have missed things and and has and and the resulting failures, very visible failures, have not been for yes.
They manifest themselves in technical ways, but they've really been because of the way the people part of the operation worked.
Hubble Space Telescope mirrors was not a yes.
It was a technical issue, but the reason that technical issue came to pass was because of the way the people operated.
And I can make the similar comments about Challenger in Colombia.
And if there's any lesson I've learned along the way, it's that the no matter and and and part of the reason why I structured the outline the way I did for today's conversation is we can have all the technical conversation anybody wants, and I can have that up one side and down the other.
The reality of it is that it's the people part that makes it happen, and the people part is the hard part.
Yeah.
Well, I I I'm gonna re re rephrase.
I would say the people part is the hard part.
Yet for leadership, they don't understand it's the systems and structure that enable the people part, and they don't spend enough time on the systems and structure to make the people be able to perform.
And I'll give the example of going back to, well, I talked about InterTrust.
So we're putting in a financial accounting system, which is amazing.
That would be helpful.
We just we have Kirkland and Ellis, which you just shared with me earlier.
Your son is now working at Kirkland and Ellis.
So Kirkland and Ellis is building our compliance program for us.
So in the United States, there's EARS, just for anybody who's I sometimes have to do this, EIR, ITAR, and CFIUS.
Those are constraints that the US government puts on for the transfer of intellectual property that could be damaging to the government.
And that also exists in Germany.
It exists in Israel.
It exists in Russia.
It exists all over.
It's not just America.
But we have Kirkland and Ellis building that compliance program.
So it's the hard part, I think, for leadership is to know how to build the systems and structure that allows the individuals to be talented.
And if I may add one to your list Mhmm.
The leaders establish the culture to make those systems successful.
How do you do that?
By your actions and by your words.
I've got all kinds of different stories running through my
Pick one because I'm I'm gonna break it down.
What are the actions?
What are
the what are what are the what are the actions and what are the, words?
The the the the actions are, number 1, as I mentioned earlier, being curious and listening and trusting people.
But you have to establish a culture where people feel the freedom to bring in bad news, to bring in problems without necessarily having solutions.
And you have to have a culture where people are willing you you have to have the systems and the processes, as you've mentioned, and the culture that allows, those systems to operate efficiently with with the best possible info and timely information exchange among the team so that the team can go do their job.
The the example I use, David, is World Cup Soccer.
Okay.
There isn't a team there isn't a national team that wins the World Cup every 4 years without the ability.
The reason they win is because everybody knows their positions, and they're playing their positions.
They also know how their role interacts with others on the field, and they are and they are very clearly working that interaction in a positive direction.
And to get to your to get to your question, the manager of that World Cup soccer team has to encourage and hold people accountable to do exactly what I just described.
So the leader has a very key role, and I don't think we talk about culture.
We talk about communication.
What we don't fully understand or sometimes fully don't take account of is that our actions and the way we behave are are key to how a lot of this works and is successful.
Now the next question you're gonna ask me, because the students have asked me this question, is gonna be, well, how do you you know, what what do you do to make it work?
Mhmm.
And I say it's really simple.
It's a lot simpler than we'd like to make it.
We try to make things harder than they need to be.
The answer is really simple.
Treat others as you want to be treated.
I don't wanna be yelled and screamed at.
I wanna be told when I'm not meeting expectations.
I wanna be told what I need to accomplish.
Treat others the way you wanna be treated, and you're 90% of the way there to making sure you have the right culture.
I wish it was so easy because people, including myself, we don't see ourselves well enough to be able to know.
Oh, I we I am doing that.
No.
You're not.
You just treated me like garbage.
No.
I was I was helping you.
So it it I agree with you.
If if the world there's a there's a data point out there, and it's not ex I don't have it in my head that do you know the number one reason people join an organization, a brand, or a company?
Do you know the number one reason?
Not I might, but I'm probably gonna.
They they go because they believe going there will help them grow, learn, and further their career.
Right.
It's
not complicated.
The number one reason people leave, and these are my data points that I've learned, the number one pea reason people leave
It's because it's not doing that.
They're not learning, and it's because of their boss.
Right.
It's
combined.
And the person that and I hate I don't like the word boss, but I'm using it in a derogatory sentence here.
That person that they report to and where they're supposed to be learning, growing, doing, I'm gonna move on because I can learn and grow someplace else.
People always say, oh, it's financial.
It's how much they make.
No.
People join a lot of organizations, nonprofit, profit, government, military education.
They all different sectors.
They they do because they believe that their future is best served this way.
And the challenge is when we say treat other people the way we wanted them to be treated, it I it's a tough one for people.
Well, it requires a certain level of self awareness.
Yeah.
That's a good word.
That you said it better than I did.
And and and which which leads me back to a previous part of this conversation is that's one of the key things I interview for or I look for when I'm putting a team together is the self awareness.
For example
Yeah.
One of my favorite interview questions.
And I don't y'all well, this will go out on the podcast, and heaven only knows what happens with it.
No.
No one no no one actually listens to this.
Come on.
By the way, I can't it might get applied to me one day.
My favorite one of my favorite interview questions is, what are three strengths and weaknesses, and what are you doing to correct the weaknesses?
Now that sounds easy off the top, but just go just go figure out just take a little study and see how many people can actually come up with 3 different weaknesses.
And I underline the word different.
Yeah.
Not saying the same thing different ways.
Three different weaknesses if and and I've I have done interviews where I get 1, maybe 2, but if I don't get 3, then that tells me that that person's self is not as self aware as they need to be.
So you you don't have to answer it, but I'm gonna ask you.
Do you have 3?
Yes.
I do.
Okay.
It it's I the I I'm gonna go back to this 90%.
They don't have their own answer for themselves.
They wanna hear somebody else's.
Well, but if you're putting a team together that has a good level of self awareness Mhmm.
It it actually starts to build a culture where if they have individual self awareness and they have the leeway established by the leader to to work on the self awareness of the team Mhmm.
Now I'm getting places because now I have a team that is individually self aware, team level self aware, and and that and now they can have the more honest discussions of of in the heart in in dealing with the heart issues to make hard things successful.
We just recently a company out of Singapore, through a friend of mine, connected me to fingerprints first to success or for success, and for success.
And it's one of those analysis tools.
You do your you you fill out a bunch of questions and it comes back.
And we they offered it to us, and I said, before we're gonna roll it and use it wherever, what we'll do is give it a try, and we put 5, I think, 5 people on it.
And it was, to them, very shocking how close it was in terms of who they are and what they do, but it was very easy for individuals to see, oh, you're a tactical person in this area.
Oh, you're you're introverted in this area.
Oh, you don't do this.
And it was an eye opener, I think, for individuals to be able to cross reference and see.
Oh, I that's why that person does that.
Now I understand.
That's their skill set.
That's their capability.
That's their that's their how their their framework is built within themselves.
And so here, you're you're asking the question at the same time, the blinders, these type of tools, if they're done right, if they're used properly, can also help someone to see what those are.
And then it can also help the team see what they are.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then you and then this tool, you can compare.
You could take 3, 4, 5 people, and you can put what they answered and how they came out and say, oh, you're this.
I I'm extremely forward oriented or future oriented.
I I really look far.
And there are other people whose that's a small dot in their comparisons.
I if they I think if you have a 140 on the standard deviation of 2 standard, 3 standard deviations out, I'm at the 140.
But when it there's another person and they're at the other end of the extreme where or at the other end of the bell curve where they don't have that.
So you you you can now understand why language sometimes hurts between each other because they they don't grasp it.
It's not part of their at this point in their lives, they don't see that.
And and I will give you a a firsthand experience here where I was in a new role and I was working with some colleagues and we were we were struggling.
We weren't there was frustration in our communications and in our working relationship.
And then we went through one of those kind of tools you just described, approaching it from one perspective I'm approaching it from one perspective.
The other person was approaching it from a different perspective.
And once we knew that
Mhmm.
From each other, then we were able to better communicate.
Yes.
And and that made all the difference in the world in terms of I mean and this was a key relationship in the organization we were working in at the time, and and it made all the difference in the world for making some of the key success that needed to happen down the road.
Absolutely.
And it it's not I bet we all can come up with stories on this.
A very quick one, I was this is in terms of just knowledge base.
Had this client once.
He wasn't a client.
I'm sitting in front of me.
He's on the phone with somebody, and they're just disagreeing about this partnership.
And they're going back and forth and back and forth, and I said, hang up the phone.
And he said, I'm on the phone.
I said, I know you're on the phone.
That's why I said, hang up.
And he said, what do you want?
And he hung up the phone.
I walked over to a board, and I said, there's 6 forms of alliances.
User as partnership, it's very bland.
It's ad hoc consortium, project joint venture, joint venture, merger, and acquisition.
Merger is different than acquisition.
There are 6.
What are you trying to build?
And I described them.
And I and he said, oh, we're not building a a joint venture.
We're building a project joint venture, which means that you're doing this project.
When it's over, you decide if you wanna do it again, but you're not married at the hips.
And I said, call him back and tell him that.
So he picks up the phone.
He calls him.
He says, I don't want a partnership.
I wanna do a project joint venture.
If things work out, things work out.
And if they don't, we move on.
The deal was done within less than 3, 4 minutes because the language was missing the tools.
To me, 6 forms of alliances is a tool.
When you say we're a partner, what does that mean?
Are we life partners?
Are we business partners?
Are we 50 partners?
Are we what?
But when you say wanna do a project joint venture, different than a joint venture, project, you're not married at the hips.
And anytime you have a vendor when you hire a vendor, you got a project joint venture.
They do the work for you.
When you're done, you pay the bill, and that's the arrangement.
Well, in this case, it helps.
So I think to add on top of it, not just the clarity of the of the the culture, but the definitions and the vocabulary that is integrated within that helps a lot.
Those are the tools.
That's the system structure.
So I think, the the point here in in my mind is that these tools, particularly the engineering mindset, kind of puts them off to the side and, you know, gets frustrated with having to do it and doesn't like doing it.
In reality, they are absolutely essential.
Yes.
I agree.
Because this is how you help get the information you need to have the the communication, the teamwork that is so essential.
I I mean, I I have well, you can tell, based on the discussion today, it's the the success or failure largely depends on how well the people are working together.
Because the one thing I've learned is great things can be accomplished when people put their when when I have the right mindset and the people with the right mindset are working together because then they start to they they they question.
They they think things through.
They think about it from a different perspective.
They use all of their different know all of their different information from all their different knowledge bases to to apply to a problem, and and you just end up in a better place that way.
And that's how you that that's how you accomplish these, you
know, you bring them together in this room, and you you do, you do a a pep rally talk, a directional talk.
You show where you're going.
And do you because we're talking about getting the smart people.
A lot of negotiation on price or fees or, what do you call it, salaries, bonuses, benefits, all of that.
Have you been involved in creating all of that?
Is that come from some other department that gave you those, that framework?
I have always made sure that I was involved in that, because what that all boils down to are what are the incentives that are being used to get the, the behavior and the actions that you need to accomplish the mission.
And it all ties together.
It cannot be you you cannot, have another group off on the side dictating how things are gonna get done because there's no guarantee that that's actually gonna be what you need to accomplish the mission.
An example of that is many people, and I saw this firsthand in previous life is, well, obviously, we need the smart people.
So we're gonna hire based on GPA.
No.
I want the people with the right work ethic.
I'll I'll take a 2 point o GPA if that 2.0 GPA was having to work their way through school and doing whatever else needed to be done to be successful over the 4 point o that had that had the that had the, the free ride through school.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
The person who ended up getting scholarships, the one who did help the dog, the animal shelter along the way was involved in community things or even internally.
And then they ended up with a a 3.1 where the other person was a 4 point o, but didn't have any of that, I'm gonna use the word texture to who they were as a person.
Well, it's it's it's it's personality.
You know, it's broadening experience
Mhmm.
Which all plays into this.
And I think, you know, a a lot of what we've been talking about today is really bringing in that broadened experience.
So how do you how in your history, how do you find that?
I mean, you've asked these questions.
You have another question to add for that experience to do.
Is this just on their CV?
How did you identify?
Well, the the the CV is certainly a key point to go to because that's a, it does 2 things.
1, it gives you, it gives you an entry level set of information.
It also tells you what they feel is important.
So you can see you you you get a sense of it, but certainly the CV, and then you get it out of the interview process and the discussion process.
And I think, you know, that's that's why that has to be done, because that I like your word texture.
The texture of the beyond the beyond the technical qualifications for any position, is always so important.
It's interesting.
My mind raised while I was doing this, and I said it's 2,022.
And I can guarantee you someone is saying, but you have to check their online profiles.
You have to look and see what they're posting and what they're actually thinking.
You have to do and I think today, that's probably an that's not been my role when I'm working with organizations or even in what I've done.
I think today, that's probably a a huge part of that too is, where are they?
What are they doing?
What what's their voice?
And that's a tough one because it's it's mixing personal and and professional.
You should be able to say you could have both, but if someone has some of these bad, the the culture is fake as they're meeting you.
The what they're demonstrating is fake.
It's tough to be able to discern.
The Well, that that's yeah.
And and, again, you know, you just have to the other thing you have to be willing to do is you you take the best shot you can and make your decision.
And if it works, great.
If it doesn't,
And you move on.
You move on and you evolve.
I think, you know, I the other well so we've, you know, we've talked a lot about the team.
I don't know if you still wanna go if you still have more, you wanna go
I I'm I we could go for a long time.
Next one is mechanics to work.
Yeah.
The mechanics, a couple of key things, and I'm not gonna go through the well, what I, although I've learned that this is not as well understood as I thought.
You know, there's the standard, you know, understand your scope, which is what are you trying to accomplish, what's the what's the end objective, and what what is needed to go make that happen, in your budget and your schedule and the interrelated 3 legged stool that all that turns out to be.
One of the things I think that's important when we go to these audacious projects is we actually lose one of the key things is that we lose our recognition or our ability or look past our ability to simplify things.
We from a technical perspective, we end up inadvertently, you know, coming up with all kinds of technical solutions when simplicity actually, is a better is is a better approach.
What do I mean by that?
Well, first of all, if I ask myself, what drives a lot of the issues in in these big projects, it's the number of interfaces and the complexity of those interfaces.
Just the number of interfaces requires as the number of interfaces increases, the difficulty increases exponentially.
Mhmm.
And then the more complex those interfaces are just make it even worse.
And I don't think we spend enough time and, and I'll I'll I'll use an example here in a second.
I don't think we spend enough time of trying to simplify the interfaces.
So, back in a previous life when we were trying to, in the 2010 time frame, try to figure out what NASA was gonna be doing in response to the constellation program being canceled and what were we gonna do in human exploration.
I got asked one day, you know, okay.
We're coming up with these different con we're coming up with the launch vehicle and the spacecraft and the ground systems.
And they said, well, how how would you manage this program?
And I said, well, I don't know.
Let me go think about it.
And on an airplane going back home, I realized I didn't need to think about it too much because we already had the model.
And the model was Apollo with some rather simple interfaces in that I had a launch vehicle, I had a spacecraft, and I had ground systems.
Now I will openly admit that everybody's got their own perspectives of how well or how well that did not work.
Mhmm.
But I basically walked back to my to the person that asked me the question, and I said, you know, we're trying to do basically the same kind of thing here, at least in this first phase that we're in.
Why don't we just use the Apollo program approach?
And, you know, 1, it's simplified.
2, it is it's already it's already a proven test case that we know that it works.
And what was interesting to me in that in in in trying to implement that was how politics, and other things tried to make it harder, tried to put additional interfaces into things when we already had a simplified system that we knew would work.
But because of all kinds of demands and all kinds of different perspectives and all kinds of different perceived answers, we ended up making the job harder on ourselves than we probably needed to because we allowed unnecessary and extra interfaces to creep into the to creep into the system.
So I guess my message is that keep the interfaces to an absolute minimum on the number.
Keep them as simple keep the interfaces as simple as possible, and then very purposely put margin in the right places and have as much margin as you can because you don't know everything, and you're gonna need some margin to go cover the issues.
So just for for definition purposes, interfaces to you means what?
When I have to have, on a technical perspective, and I've got a wire that has to I I've got a command that has to go from the spacecraft to the launch vehicle, that's an interface.
Okay.
Yep.
Or, I have one organization that's doing a part of a job and another organization's doing another part of a job, that's an interface I have to manage.
That's also one of the my that you you might appreciate.
I don't know if you know this from, from engineering.
There's a concept out of Japan by a guy, Shango Shingo.
I'm not saying the first name right.
And it's a concept called SMED, single minute exchange of dye.
And it was that he could take any process within an organization, and this is for manufacturing, and he could take it down to 2 minutes or less.
Anything.
So if you had a 10 ton press, and it would take you 2 days to move the press over, align it, put it in, have to have technical people, he took it from 2 days.
This is the first case that was in the in the book that I read, and he took it to 2 minutes.
And I won't go into the details of the engineering behind it.
Simple things, 2 cranes instead of 1, so you pick up and you move it over, and the other one's already ready to go in place.
They put cones on the bottom on the and then into the 10 ton block so that when you laid it down, it actually was milled, so it was almost exactly perfect when it landed.
I kinda use that same concept single minute exchange of dye that you to some degree, I think as you're using it as an interface, that you should be able to find any document within less than 2 minutes.
You should be able to commune you should be able to put something together in certain, let's say you're gonna join 2 structures, locking mechanism.
Locking mechanism, you should be able to do it within 2 minutes.
You should you should fight for bringing it to simplicity simplicity simplicity enough that within 2 minutes, the mechanism works.
And I and when I'm thinking of people, I also think about that.
For example, finding a document within 2 minutes, well, that reduces friction and allows people to do their job more efficiently because now there's not a a challenge of, where is that?
It is let's get forward.
Let's get moving.
So maybe that falls into that same interface category.
It absolutely does.
It absolutely does.
We we file every document.
You could try this.
We file every document, not with the name first.
A lot of people do that.
But you can't remember the name of the document created a year ago.
But we file it with the year, month, day with hashes.
So it'll be 22 dash 07 dash 14.
It's not European.
It's not American.
It's not it's just 22 dash 07 dash 14.
And what that would do and then you can name it whatever you want.
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Okay.
Great.
And then you would say, project x version 1.
Well, when you create a version 2, it's the next date, so it's always gonna be in chronological order.
But you can also remember if I said to you, Dan, you and I worked on this sometime last year, and we have 40 documents.
I can guarantee you, you'll find it within a second because you'll say it was midsummer.
You're gonna look to 21 dash 04, a 5, 6, and 7, and there it is.
There's only 4 documents.
There it is.
You know which one it is.
And within seconds, you can find anything.
And because we remember time references better than we can remember who named it and why they named it.
And so we put mechanisms in place, and I've and I'm using the word interfaces here is so that the interfaces are smooth.
It's like adding oil to an engine.
You're allowing it to happen so that that doesn't become the obstacle.
I can't find it.
We have to meet next week.
Yeah.
But I have meetings next week.
We have to do this.
We have to do that.
So I think of these interfaces, especially on the job role is making that so that the interface works, the dialogue works between individuals.
Yeah.
I toe totally agree with that.
I think that, you know, taking it to that level of thought is not something we typically do.
And I've and I and I I would my experience has taught me.
I, frankly, hadn't gone as far as you did, but I think what we don't do is we don't look for we just start piling on interfaces because we're solving the problem of the moment and not thinking down the road a little bit about what this might mean and what this might imply or what the impact might be down the road.
And so I I think we my my plea is that we intentionally think through our our interfaces in in all forms of definition of that word.
Because every time I've gotta take a piece of information and cross from one place to another, there's an interface that has to be dealt with.
And as you said, there's possible friction, and I need to reduce the friction.
Yeah.
I I I so I'm trying to kinda bring in some flavor to what you're saying because I I agree with you, and I hadn't thought about it as interfaces.
We all interface.
My Microsoft Teams gave us Teams.
They gave us a 100 seats.
They gave us a bunch of things.
And and I we thank Microsoft just like we're thanking Dassault and all the others that we've mentioned for helping to work towards what we're trying to achieve.
But Microsoft Teams has some basic flaws.
If you are ever worked in it, you whenever you correspond with somebody, it everything stays in that channel.
The challenge is if someone's not access to that channel, they can't get it.
And so we moved everything or I moved everything to Teams, and we worked with it for 2 months.
And I realized we were gonna create 4 years from now thousands of files that can't be interacted or sorted or found.
So it took me 3 months.
I did it myself.
I didn't ask anybody else to do it because they need to do more important work.
As I removed everything out, we work everything's in OneDrive, and this allows us to be able to share.
If I wanna share something with you, Dan, I can share it across internal and external to our organization, which couldn't do otherwise.
And so those type of things, it's not an easy thing to teach an individual that.
But if we use this word interfaces, which I have to think about if that's the word I'd like to use, but I understand the concept of it, is that we're we're taking that friction out of the system because then the humans don't have conflict.
It makes it so that they could do their job incredibly well.
Yeah.
It's the human interfaces as well as the technical interfaces.
As too.
So I I the word interface is interesting that you use that.
Okay.
That that's the word I've always used, mainly because, well, it works well in it works well in the engineering community.
They Yeah.
And I I know that.
And that's why I there are certain words that people use, and that's why I'm playing with it out loud with you.
I'm trying to find if that's the word that I wanna use.
So I'm sorry.
I'm using you as an experiment.
Do I like that word?
It's it's when one of the challenges with the Beyond Earth ecosystem is everything is an acronym.
Everything.
And the challenge is if you're dealing with people who are not in this ecosystem, they don't know what that acronym means.
And I've seen people just yeah.
It's a common phrase.
Well, they'll ask me if they don't understand.
No.
They won't.
They will listen to you go on and on and on, shake their head, and at the end, they're gonna say, got it, but they didn't.
And the challenge is that same acronym, FAM, also stands for For All Mankind, the movie.
And it also stands for Food Around Museums.
And it also stands for fabulous, abundant lifestyle, or or or man whatever.
And those to me are challenges of that interface.
Because if we wanna be inclusive in solving the 6 mega challenges with project Moon Hut in the world and not project Moon Hut, the 6 mega challenges exist on the world.
If we're going to solve them, if we're going to address them, this friction, this interface, let's use your term, it's working for me.
The interfaces are have to be, they they have to be transferable, not just across a language, but across cultures.
So if you're in if you're in Vietnam and you hear that, it has to they have to be able to understand it.
And language is different with different cultures.
Having lived in Europe, having lived in Asia and the US, if you don't have that language translation, you can lose everything in in culture.
So the interface is an interesting again, I'm playing with it out loud so you can hear.
So I I that's my mind goes to how do you make that work, and there's a technical side and there's a nontechnical, and I it's interesting that so I I I right now, I'm gonna steal it.
Thank you.
I'm not gonna I'll put $3 in the in the bill or €3 or 30 Hong Kong dollars or something.
But that I I think the word's an interesting work.
Okay.
Anything else in mechanisms for work?
No.
I think, David, that's you know, those I the only other thing I would maybe just go back and and hit on is, one of the the way I people, I don't think fully understand how interrelated what it is you're trying to do or the scope of work is related to the budget, is related to the schedule.
One of the things, I think, one of the things that I have paid a lot of attention to that I think has been somewhat successful over time has been the and and being honest about it is the interrelationship among those 3 whenever you're trying to accomplish something because, you know, a change in budget has to be addressed in either schedule and or scope and, you know, and vice versa across all 3.
And that interrelationship, I I've I I have uncovered over time how how little people understand that those 3 are actually interrelated and don't appreciate or that they think they can change one without affecting the other 2.
And I I I always stand there in amazement when I have these conversations, which is why I'm bringing it up in this context.
No.
It it's perfect.
I had this conversation last night.
So yes.
And I it just amazes me.
And and so I, you know, I I I put this all together and I just sit back and I think, man.
You know?
I I I need at least need to make the point.
I need to make the point that they're all interrelated, and I need to make the point that you have to keep track of all this, and you have to track it at the right levels, and you have to do it in a timely way.
Because the other thing that the other hard lesson I've learned is problems don't go away.
They only get worse with time.
And so the sooner you identify it through either leading or lagging indicators, whatever it is, and the sooner you address the problem, the better off you are.
So I'm I'm going to ask you, and I'll and I'll put a little filler in there.
I want you to go over scope of work, budget, and schedule, but I'll I I will not but I will add to your little conversation of what happened.
I I in our group, I suggested that 3 individuals work on creating a budget for something.
And I shared with them the reason why is that they gotta learn to work together.
They've gotta understand.
They also have to understand that a budget is a story.
It is for a financial person, a story.
It tells the story of what you're gonna do, when you're gonna do it, how much is it gonna cost.
It doesn't tell you the full story, but it gives you a story for a person who's that type of person.
Other people wanna read it in words, how you're gonna build it, what you're gonna do.
But a financial person can read that, and they see a story that you won't see just like an engineer will see something that you don't see.
And then I said, but here's the kicker with for all of you.
If you if you ever been in a meeting and someone says, see that block right there?
47 j?
Change that to 22 from 20.
And everybody's, yeah.
Yeah.
No.
That that's good.
We'll change that.
And I I'm off in the room and I say, what are you talking about?
And they say, well, it's not I I don't think it's high enough or I don't think it's low enough.
And I'll say, so what's the logic?
Like, how you can't just change a block.
You had to have more customers who bought, a decrease in material costs.
There has to be a time schedule change.
There has to be that you you eliminate employees, added employees, added new equipment.
You can't just change a block.
Every block has meaning, and that goes to your scope of work and schedule.
So kind of the filler in there, but I I laugh at it because it was a perfect thing, yet you tied it better than I did to budget and schedule by using those three words.
So my question is how after you define each one.
Is that okay?
How do I define each one?
Well, define scope of work, define budget, define schedule, like, how you would do it, what it what it is, and then how do you make all of those interact?
Oh, wow.
We're gonna be here a whole another story.
The,
But, yeah, it's it's a it's a very valid question.
This is an important part
of a large It it's really okay.
So I'll I'll kinda I'll try to simplify it.
Yeah.
Scope scope is fundamentally what are you doing?
What what are we trying to accomplish?
What are we and what do you need to do to accomplish it?
So what does that mean?
That means if I'm trying to put 4 walls and a roof on the
moon Yeah.
Well, I gotta the scope of that is obviously the 4 walls and the roof, but I gotta get the 4 walls and the roof there.
They have to survive in some kind of environment.
Yeah.
I have to understand that environment.
So I have to do some analysis.
I have to do some design work.
I have to do some testing work.
I have to do what work do I need to accomplish the mission is the scope.
Okay.
The budget or I'm sorry.
Let me do the other one first.
The schedule is when I started at the right hand side, and I said, this is when I need to accomplish this mission, and I've worked backwards right to left to figure out what I need to do when I need to do it.
That's my schedule.
Mhmm.
Now, obviously, it's an iterative process to get there.
You don't just do it once, but, you know, there's there's work here to
And then the budget is, okay.
This is the work I'm gonna do.
This is when I'm gonna do it.
This is how much money, financial resources I need to be able to accomplish this work in the time frame I have laid out.
Yeah.
And so that's the way I define the 3.
Works for me.
And then and and as you can tell, they're all interrelated because I gotta do the work.
I gotta know when I'm gonna do the work, and then I gotta figure out how much it's gonna cost to do the work.
And doing the work over a long period of time might be cheaper or it might be more expensive than doing it in a shorter period of time, but I gotta I I gotta know what I have to know what and when to figure out how much resources is needed.
Okay.
So do you use CPM charts, Gantt charts?
So do you use a project management tool?
Are you just an Excel spreadsheet person, or are you using some other more sophisticated budgeting tools for something of this scale and sky size?
Are you, using word for scope of work, or is this a software application that today I should be using, we should be using, I should be making a call, you're calling for us and saying, give project Moon Hunt this because they need that.
What would you do for each one?
So the first thing I would do is I go I go back to my work breakdown structure kind of thought process, which is my work breakdown structure is what do I need to accomplish and when do I need to accomplish it, and then I assign resources to those.
Yep.
Why do I use scheduled Gantt charts?
You bet.
They do a couple of things.
1, they force you to think through the interrelationships of what needs to be done when.
They are also wonderful communication tools if done right.
I will show you at another time, I'll teach I'll show you about a CPM chart.
I don't know if you're familiar with CPM chart.
Yeah.
I'm I'm familiar with CPM.
I'll get to that in a second.
Okay.
I definitely use the schedule charts, and I will tell you one of the most it was actually a relatively small project, but one of the most successful things I ever saw done was on this small project was we, every single day, had a tag up meeting of the leadership of the project, and this was people around the country.
And the project manager insisted that there was only one thing shown, and that was the overall schedule that we were trying to accomplish.
And that's what everybody looked at every day, and that's what every con every conversation we had about issues or what we were doing about issues was done in the context of that schedule.
We ended up being able to achieve all of the project's mission or meet all of the project's goals and objectives on schedule under budget.
Yep.
By the way, this was also the project that did vertical landing of rockets before Elon did it.
Yep.
Perfect.
And so the Gantt chart is is essential.
The work breakdown structure in my mind is essential.
And it doesn't I I I'm I'm I'm a little nervous because when I say that, some people are gonna oh my gosh.
That's a lot of work.
Well, if I can't write down in succinct form what I'm trying to do, when I'm trying to do it, and the resources I need, I don't think I understand what I'm trying to do.
I'm gonna say tough s h.
That's
your that's your job.
That's your job to figure this out in a theoretical universe.
A leader's job is to, in in their mind, create the future and then put it down so other people can translate it.
Right.
Tough.
You have to have the tools, and you have to be able to articulate it.
So So CPM, yes.
I I do it to a certain level.
I think sometimes I know in the government, we took it to to an extreme that was less much less than useful.
Yes.
The the people go too far with it, for sure.
It it, if it doesn't give me timely prediction of issues ahead and what needs to be addressed, then it's not worth doing.
The only challenge I have with Gantt charts is I'm in rooms all the time where they say this is delayed, and all Gantt software has the ability to just move one thing and everything else moves automatically.
And I've been in enough meetings where people said, ah, that's not gonna happen till next week and whole schedule's out.
And it became too simple to not say, wait a moment.
Let's fix this.
Let's change this.
Let's modify it.
Is it cost?
Is it capital?
Is it people?
Is it time?
Is it technology?
What do you need to apply?
Because you have to reduce something else to make up for that change.
And that's the Gantt charts today are too simple.
They they allow people to delay.
So I I agree with you.
I will say this.
That was that's where the failure of the leadership occurs.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Because the leadership needs to ask exactly the questions you talked about, and they and and and they should not that's okay.
So one of the tools I do use is you are not allowed to just go change the schedule.
You have to show this is the baseline schedule chart, and we're gonna track ourselves against the baseline schedule chart, because then and and you're not allowed to change the schedule chart until we all agree it's time, and you're gonna show the slips on that schedule chart because we're the end goal has not moved yet.
Do you use anything besides an Excel spreadsheet, or is there any software that you're using when you do this?
Actually, yes and no.
And the reason I answer it that way, David, is because, yeah, I'm gonna probably use a Microsoft project or something, but it doesn't mean that I have to I need to have some version control.
I have schedule as of 14 September or I'm sorry.
14 July 2022.
And and this is my schedule as of that date, and and now that is locked down.
And from there, I track that I track the performance against that schedule until we decide to rebaseline the schedule.
Okay.
And and I have to set I have to make sure the software gives you the capability to do that.
It's just we choose not to use that function because it's too easy to do what you described.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
I completely understand.
What and and right now, we're right back to people holding each other and themselves accountable.
What what I would do and I'll get I call Microsoft.
I do this all the time, and I say, put a function in there that you could turn off the ability to change the timeline.
Right.
Because if the system doesn't allow the change of the timeline or the leadership that has the ability to turn off the ability to change the timeline, then you can't change the timeline.
So for me, I would rather not have a cultural thing because then there's a conversation around it.
I'd rather have the function turned off.
And then it could be overridden with, like, like, 2 keys for turning on the nuclear missiles.
You know, it can't just change it.
Someone has 2 people have to turn the keys at the same time.
Right.
There has to be a conscious decision.
Right.
I I that's the way I try to approach things is what would make it easier for people to to not have to think about in that way.
If the function's not there, yeah, you can't do it.
Right.
Just turn it off.
And that's where I said I with Microsoft.
We moved everything out of Microsoft.
We moved we we, we have these Teams.
We love Teams, but there are challenges with it.
We we use the tools, and then we amplify them by making alternatives such as the dating structure.
All of that is part of that equation.
So so you have a scope of work, a budget, and a schedule.
Budget is easy.
You could use any type of software application to do that.
You've got a schedule, and you're using it potentially with Gantt charts.
You were using them possibly Microsoft Project.
So you've got multiple tools you're running simultaneously to manage the scheduling.
And the scope of work is is to use some is it a template of a a scope of work, or is it is there one out there that this is the one that I love, or is it a software application that can do scope of work?
I don't even know.
I've never looked up scope of work software.
I don't know that there is a scope of work software.
I think we've typically just done written it up in Word and then used us used the work breakdown structure to just copy and paste in the information.
I just pulled it up very quickly.
There's contract life cycle management.
There's automatic proposal software.
There's work planning templates.
So I I've gotta be here's 1.
Software development scope of work, template tips and tools.
So so there's a few of them out there that might be a a means by which that you can put a mechanism in place.
Again, for me, it's a mechanism.
What's your scope of work?
Answers these 12 questions.
You can't answer them.
They'll pass go.
You could create the culture that this is a necessity that, derives at.
So okay.
Yeah.
I think and and that gets to another that gets to a key point that there needs to be some discipline in doing this.
1 of the we haven't talked about this, but there is a there's a certain amount of discipline here to hold to hold yourself and everyone accountable to, not just allowing the easy answer to slide things off to the right, but, you know, what are we doing to fix the problem and get back on track?
I agree.
Okay.
So we've got recognized challenge.
What was that?
Well, actually, we've talked about that.
Okay.
What what what was it supposed to be?
It was it it kinda goes back to that first understand the problem in the,
Oh, when we went over goal and mission, I took you down the rabbit hole of the challenges and that breakdown.
Right.
Okay.
If there's anything you wanna add at this point that would be useful?
No.
I'm flipping through my notes, and I think just about everything I wrote down, we've covered in some form or fashion.
Well, that's a good thing.
I'm actually doing this backwards because that's a way to make me look at it.
Well, I I I think I shared with you before we started the interview that I would ask a question the minute it comes up because it's important.
You could say later or we could talk about it, and that happens.
I I think the the best one is best interview in this case, I'll use an example, is we start there's 2 of them.
1 of them is Naderan Prasad, and we he was going he started and he talked about something to do with gun with, with rocketry, and I said, well, I don't understand this.
And he said, let's start back where gunpowder came from.
Yeah.
And he and he said and he shared with me that the Chinese to in order to deliver mail, figured out how to use gunpowder so that they could shoot the mail from ship to shore so they wouldn't have to ship a boat to shore so that they didn't have that extra time and those extra risks and everything associated with it.
So they'd get to a port area, and they'd fire rockets ship to shore.
So he gave this brilliant outcome, a brilliant thing.
And then there's, Peter, Peter Garretson.
Again, names you possibly have heard.
Peter Garretson started his with, talking he was covering the, what do you Space Force.
And he starts he starts he starts, and I said, simple question.
Can you please define Space Force?
Oh my god.
I can't believe I forgot to define the one thing that we're talking about.
And I asked the questions, and and I think that the way that it's been flowing out seems logical.
I I think you would agree.
We we didn't, like, skip something.
I think there's no logic to it.
No.
I don't think we skipped anything, and I've, you know, like I said, I've gone back through the notes that I had written down.
I've my my only fear, David, and I've I've the first thing I wrote down in my notes was to myself was I I fear I'm not telling you anything new.
You know?
It's I I learned all this the hard way, in many respects.
I had mentors that insisted that you got into the middle of the frying pan and and got into the game and and didn't just spectate.
I actually worked for a group of guys group of people, that made Apollo happen or they were part of the Apollo team, so they had rather high expectations.
And one thing and I this is I I had a I had an experience one day where I was in a meeting with a person who was 2 levels above me in the organization.
He was actually the center director at the time, and he just looked at me when I was complaining about some stuff.
And he said, Dan, we don't pay you to do what your boss tells you to do around here.
We pay you to do what is right.
Am I clear?
Yeah.
I'm answering for you for him.
And and I just looked at him and, you know, it was doctor doctor Wayne Littles that did that.
And and when and when Wayne told me that, you know, it just crystallized.
Unfortunately, every boss I've had since then has had to deal with that.
It's it's about it's about the mission.
It's about accomplishing the mission.
It's about doing the right thing so that this all works.
So if I can help you, or give you, some direction here on why it's valuable so that your fear is allayed, you I think I sent you a copy of paid to think.
It took 12 years to write 14 complete revisions over 40 50 countries in the book, over 400 examples.
I was there for 72% of them.
I've I've spent a lot of time on this, but that doesn't mean that I can't learn something.
So let me give you an example.
There's if you think about horse racing, you don't have to love it, hate it.
Just think about horse racing.
All these they buy horses.
They grace horses.
They give them the same amount of food.
They train them every day, and they bring them to, say, let's use the Kentucky Derby.
They put them into this little box, and the gun goes off and, ram, they're running.
And they go to horse, turn 1, and they're racing neck and neck, and they go to turn 2.
And, normally, in the back, when you're watching that 2 to 3, you can see that they're net they're going back and forth, and one is expanding out, and the other one falls back, and then they change turn 3 and then turn 4.
And as they're going down right in front of everybody and the crowd is cheering, there is this phrase known around the world, and it is the horse wins by a nose.
What happens to the other horse?
It loses by a nose.
Yep.
And while there's a whole set of other horses on the track, oftentimes winning by a nose is the difference between winning the entire purse.
The other one gets $250,000 and a slap on the rear, and this one gets the stud for the rest of their lives.
The difference is that it's not that I was looking for the miracle cures, and and I think people are listening in here.
What we're looking for I'm looking for is to learn from your experiences.
So to find the one missing by a nose that I might not have used in the the best way, or or, for example, let's take that word that I'm actually looking up that we just talked about with the eye.
Interfaces.
Interfaces to we the word interface might be a better way for me to be able to describe something that is useful in this context.
So the there's a win by a nose, lose by a nose here, and I wasn't looking for miracles.
I was asking a person who's worked on $100,000,000 projects and $1,000,000,000 projects, and I too have been involved in I work with the CEOs of Maersk and Dole and, Infosys and Wipro and companies around the world.
I've been involved in large projects, but that doesn't mean I can't learn something, and I'm looking for the noses here.
I'm looking for those little things that I might I might have forgotten about or didn't aren't paying attention to.
And that old saying when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
To that.
You can almost overlay that.
We're evolving with so many interesting, things.
Yesterday, I was on the phone with Doris Taylor.
She just invented the first heart or created the first heart using human cells by creating a skeleton, human cells that you could put into a body, and the expectation is you won't need the $30,000 a month of medicines from the rejection.
It will actually incorporate into your body.
Amazing person, Doris.
She's a in a Mearth Biotech, you know, with us.
She wants to work with us.
She's been known for a few years, and she just did a video for CNN.
It was fabulous, but I'm with her because I'm learning.
She's She's one of the top in the world.
I don't know what she does.
I'm learning.
So with you, Dan, I was learning.
And so it don't don't this fear is because you were I I I'm not gonna ask the question, but I think it is, and you can confirm it.
I think it was because you were expecting that you could bring the mother lode, and I was looking for you to bring the the the noses.
Does that make sense?
It makes perfect sense.
And as, you know, you and everybody find finds it useful, I'm more than happy.
I I will say this.
I I have found it like I've mentioned earlier, I found it interesting what I have come to learn and come to believe is ought to be conventional wisdom, is not so conventional.
And so, you have to keep reminding people.
I you know, I've actually a lot of this conversation we just had, in much shorter form, I've given to other I've given to students.
I've given to Hill staff and others, and it always is interesting to me to to learn how people you know, I'm always willing to share the experience because hopefully somebody can get a nugget or maybe a bunch of nuggets that they can go use to to make things better.
So all good on my part.
Yeah.
And the questions, I asked questions of things that I'd heard before, but but I wanna hear from you because you'll give a different perspective.
So, yeah, my my hope is you'll be able to use this.
I didn't think about this.
You'll be able to instead of saying to somebody, let me go over this with you, you'll say, listen to the podcast.
The these questions will be answered in the podcast because you're trying to do something that's huge, scalable, or not even.
There are lessons in there that are valuable.
So maybe those short segments, you could also relay this, and I'm not trying to get listeners.
Please don't take it that way.
It's just that there's value, and you now have it recorded.
So I think this is great.
Oh, I I wanna thank you, Dan, for being here.
I would like to thank everybody, for being for thank everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen in.
I do hope that you learned something today that will make a difference in your life and the lives of others.
The project Moon Hunter Foundation again is where we look to establish a box with a roof and a door on the moon through the accelerated development of an earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from that endeavor back on earth to improve how we live on earth for all species.
Again, you can go to website, www.projectmoonhot.org.
We're putting up a new site.
It will be up probably within the next 2 months with more.
But right now, top right hand corner, there are 2 videos that you could watch.
Dan, thank you again.
This is fabulous.
I appreciate you taking the time and being on with us today well, being on with me today, so thank you.
What's the single best way to connect with you?
Single best way, there well, is email, and that's, danield@aiaa.org.
Is there another way?
Because you sounded like there was a second one.
Oh, yeah.
There is.
LinkedIn.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm happy to do it that way.
And, but either way, daniel d or at aida.org or LinkedIn is perfectly fine with me.
Fantastic.
So if any of you are interested in connecting with us, you can reach me at david@moonhut.org.
You can connect with us on Twitter at at projectmoonhut, or my personal is at Goldsmith.
We are on LinkedIn.
We are on Facebook.
We're on Instagram.
You could find us.
I don't think you're gonna have a trouble any, challenges finding us.
That said, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.

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